Shedding light on the structure of silver nanoparticles with promising properties for nano-oncology

Abstract Nowadays, nanomedicine has been a highly explored area for finding potential solutions to global public health problems. In nanomedicine, silver nanoparticles are the most studied nanoparticles due to their excellent antibacterial, fungicidal, antiviral, and anticancer properties. Recently, our research group has revealed some extraordinary properties that significantly impact nano-cancerology for specific commercial ArgovitTM AgNP formulations. It was shown that they (1) are 2 to 200 times (on average 52 times) more active than the other 16 AgNP formulations studied earlier in inhibiting the growth of 7 cancer cell lines, and (2) they selectively inhibit the growth of cancer cells with the selectivity index reaching 16. Results of the present work obtained with HRTEM, DLS, UV-visible spectroscopy, and electrophoresis indicate that the structure of AgNP of the ArgovitTM formulation family is atypical, which cannot be explained from the point of view of the structure of usual AgNPs (Ag cores surrounded by stabilizer molecules). It was hypothesized that these matrices can be represented by nano- and microgels formed by the stabilizer. The formation of these atypical structures can cause their remarkable biomedical properties, which are highly desirable for nano-oncology. These results represent the first step towards shedding light on the structure of AgNPs of the ArgovitTM formulation family.