Introduction: Nowadays, despite a different application of nanomaterials, there is a little information about their impact on human health. The current study deals with the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and evaluation of their cytotoxicity activity on human colon cancer (HT29) and human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cell lines.

Materials & methods: The AgNPs was obtained from plant extract as a reducing and capping agent under green synthesis method. The AgNPs was confirmed by Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The cytotoxicity effect of AgNPs on cell lines was evaluated by using MTT assay after 24 hours.

Findings: The fabricated AgNPs were monitored characteristic surface Plasmon resonance peak at around 430nm. The morphological study on size and shape of AgNPs demonstrated that the particles were of spherical shape with varying sizes ranging from 10 to 30 nm. MTT assay revealed a dose-dependent anti-proliferative effect of AgNPs. At 100mg/mL of synthesized AgNPs treated for 24 hours, the viability of HT29 and HEK293 cells was reduced to 18.55±1.02 (P<0.001), and 44.40±0.81 (P<0.01), respectively.

Discussion & conclusions: Based on the current results, the green synthesized AgNPs show more inhibitory effect on colon cancer cells than the normal cells.