Cytotoxicity and antibacterial activities of new chemically synthesized magnetic nanoparticles containing eugenol

In recent years, the use of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) has increased dramatically for targeted drug delivery. Also, nanoparticles increase the effectiveness of drugs due to increased drug loading capacity. Eugenol (EUG) is the major component of clove oil which has a wide range of therapeutic effects. In this work, magnetic nanoparticles containing eugenol were prepared to enhance the therapeutic properties of eugenol. First, Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were synthesized through chemical co-precipitation reaction and their surface was coated with silica by sol-gel process. Then, the surface of Fe3O4@SiO2 MNPs was coated by eugenol. γ-Fe2O3@SiO2-EUG MNPs were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) which indicate effective coating of magnetic nanoparticles with silica and eugenol and spherical shape of the nanoparticles with an average diameter of 15 nm. Comparison of in vitro cytotoxicity of γ-Fe2O3@SiO2-EUG MNPs and EUG versus three lines of human cancer cells (human glioblastoma astrocytoma, human lung carcinoma, and human ovarian carcinoma) showed that the cytotoxicity of the nanoparticles was significantly higher than EUG specially about human ovarian carcinoma (IC50 25.34 μg/mL compared with IC50 100.57 μg/mL for EUG) while Fe3O4@SiO2 MNPs did not show cytotoxicity at used concentrations. Antibacterial assays were carried out on Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli (E. coli), Klebsiella pneumonia, and Acinetobacter baumannii which exhibited the inhibition zone for γ-Fe2O3@SiO2-EUG MNPs is larger than free eugenol indicating better antibacterial activity γ-Fe2O3@SiO2-EUG MNPs as compared with EUG.