Abstract

Terfezia claveryi is a species that belongs to the genera of Terfeziaceae or desert truffles, which is a family of truffles. In the present study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized from aqueous extract of T. claveryi which are in the range of 25 to 60 nm. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The effect of the silver nanoparticles on human breast cancer cell line has been tested. Peak absorption was recorded at 440 nm in UV-Vis spectra of silver nanoparticles. The XRD data reports that the silver nanoparticles are crystalline in nature and have face centered cubic geometry. FESEM showed the size range of synthesized silver nanoparticles as 25 to 50 nm. The TEM image represents that the majority of silver nanoparticles are in spherical shape with sizes ranging between 40 and 60 nm. The aim of the present study was to report for the first time fruit mediated synthesis of silver nanoparticles using the extract of T. claveryi and showed remarkable cytotoxicity activity against human breast MCF-7 cancer cell line.

Key words: Silver nanoparticles, Terfezia claveryi, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), MCF-7 cancer cell line.