Abstract

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common neoplastic malignancy in women in the world. The use of nanocarriers can lead to the improvement of the most effective method of cancer treatment, e.g., chemotherapy. The aim of this study was evaluation of the toxicity of doxorubicin-containing silk fibroin nanoparticles on cell lines, MCF7 and HFF and determination of the effective dose and evaluation of the cellular level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and apoptosis. Methods: In this study, doxorubicin-containing silk fibroin nanoparticles were synthesized. Light dynamics scattering (DLS) technique was used for size evaluation. Normal (HFF) and cancerous (MCF7) cells were treated with different concentrations of designed nanostructures at 24, 48 and 72 hour intervals. After the above times, MTT method was used to evaluate the vital activity of cells and V-FITC / PI Annexin kit and flow cytometry device were used to determine the rate of apoptosis. Results: Morphological evaluation by SEM showed a smaller size of nanofibroin and nanofibroin-doxorubicin than other nanostructures. The encapsulation efficiency percentage (EE) was 95.2. For nanofibroin-doxorubicin, the maximum drug release within 48 hours under normal conditions and cancer cells was 37.9 and 59.6, respectively. The inhibitory effect of fibroin-doxorubicin nanoparticles was observed on MCF7 growth by MTT test. The results of MTT assay showed that doxorubicin-coated silk fibroin nanoparticles have a dose-dependent anti-cancer effect on MCF7 cell line and low cytotoxicity on normal HFF cells. Doxorubicin-loaded silk fibroin nanoparticles significantly reduced the level of ROS in the HFF and MCF-7 cell lines (P<0.01). The rate of apoptosis in MCF-7 increased significantly in the presence of doxorubicin-coated silk fibroin nanoparticles (P<0.01). These data suggest that the drug acts to induce cell death through the apoptotic pathway. Conclusion: Silk fibroin nanoparticles containing doxorubicin acts through the apoptotic pathway and can be considered as a candidate for new anticancer drugs. © 2022, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.