Biosynthesized silver nanoparticles performing as biogenic SERS-nanotags for investigation of C26 colon carcinoma cells.

In this work, two classes of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were biosynthesized with the goal to assess their reliability in vitro as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanotags. Mycosynthesized silver nanoparticles (MAgNPs) and phytosynthesized silver nanoparticles (PAgNPs) were produced through environmentally friendly procedures by reduction of silver nitrate with Fusarium oxysporum cell filtrate and Azadirachta indica extract, respectively. Two cell lines, namely C26 murine colon carcinoma cells as example of cancer cells and human immortalized keratinocyte cells (HaCaT) as representative of healthy cell line, were selected for in vitro investigation. The in vitro toxicity studies show that M(P)AgNPs present lower cytotoxic effect on both cell lines as compared with standard citrate coated AgNPs. The internalization of M(P)AgNPs by colon carcinoma cells and structural alterations induced in the morphology of treated cells were analyzed by dark-field (DF) and differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, respectively. The most informative data about the cellular uptake and tracking potential of M(P)AgNPs were provided by scanning Confocal Raman Microscopy (CRM) and multivariate K-means cluster analysis of collected Raman spectra. The analysis reveals the subcellular components and the localization of AgNPs inside the cell via the intrinsic SERS signature of biogenic coating material. The use of unique biological material to perform synthesis, stability, biocompatibility and SERS tagging is relevant both from the point of view of encoding nanoparticles with Raman reporters and further applications in cell investigation via Raman/SERS imaging.