Preparation and characterization of niosomes containing silver nanoparticles as a radiosensitizer for enhancing radiotherapy of the lung cancer.

Lung cancer was associated with a high mortality rate. However, the critical challenges in radiotherapy are enhancing tumor damage and minimize the side effects to the healthy tissues. A strategic approach to overcome this challenge includes using different radiosensitizer to increase the efficiency of radiotherapy while reducing side effects on normal tissues. Significant progress has been achieved in the development of materials based on nanotechnology. Nanomaterial-based radiosensitizers increase the tumor cells sensitivity to ionizing radiation, and accelerating DNA damage through the production of free radicals. Therefore, in the present study, the radio sensitization efficiency of silver nanoparticles-loaded niosomes for the treatment of lung cancer has been investigated. Silver nanoparticles synthesis protocol was based on the chemical reduction method and then they were loaded inside niosomes using the thin layer hydration method. The physical and chemical characteristics of the designed nanosystems were evaluated using different instrumental and laboratory methods, including FT-IR, UV-Vis, DLS, FE-SEM, EDAX techniques. To investigate the cytotoxicity of prepared nanosystems, the MTT assay was used against two cell lines, including normal human lung cells (MRC-5) and lung cancer cells (A549), in the absence and presence of radiotherapy rays. The size and poly dispersity index of the resulting nanoparticles are in the range of Nano scale and are suitable for cancer studies. The morphology of the resulting nanoparticles was found to be spherical and homogeneous. The structural and optical analysis of the nanoparticles showed the successful synthesis of niosomes containing silver nanoparticles. Also, the EDAX technique confirmed the presence of silver nanoparticles inside niosomal formulations. The encapsulation efficiency of silver nanoparticles was 49.9% ± 0.40 for silver nanoparticles. In the following, the biocompatibility of the formulation prepared using the MTT method toward the normal cell line MRC-5 showed that no significant toxicity in the studied concentrations. MTT test toward the A549 lung cancer cell line showed an increase in the toxicity of radiotherapy in lung cancer. Our study showed that silver nanoparticles-loaded niosomal nanosystems possess significant therapeutic efficacy radiotherapy of the lung cancer. On the other hand, loading silver nanoparticles inside niosomal carriers reduced the toxicity of silver nanoparticles and introduced them as a suitable option for cell experiments. Also, we showed that the synthesized formulations in combination with radiotherapy increase the efficiency treatment through its synergistic effect.