Green Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles Using Feijoa Sellowiana Leaf Extract, Evaluation of Their Antibacterial, Anticancer and Antioxidant Activities

Biogenic synthesis of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) has great attention of scientists, as it provides clean, biocompatible, non-toxic and inexpensive fabrication. In this study, F. sellowiana leaf extract was used for synthesizing SNPs which reduces silver nitrate into silver zero-valent. SNPs were characterized by UV, FTIR, XRD, SEM-EDS, and TEM analysis. They were also examined for their biological activities. The presence of biosynthesized SNPs was characterized by UV–visible spectroscopy and also crystal nature of SNPs was identified with XRD analysis. FT-IR spectrum was used to confirm the presence of different functional groups in the biomolecules which act as a capping agent for the nanoparticles. The morphology of SNPs was explored using SEM and the presence of silver was confirmed by elemental analysis. The size of the nanoparticles was in the range of 20–50 nm determined by TEM. The green synthesized SNPs showed good antibacterial activities against both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria and also in resistant clinically isolated pathogens. Furthermore, the green synthesized SNPs showed reliable anticancer activity on the gastric adenocarcinoma (AGS) and breast (MCF-7) cancer cell lines with little effect on normal (HFF) cells. The in-vitro antioxidant activity of SNPs showed a significant effect on the scavenging of free radicals and iron chelating activity.