Introducing a novel chemotherapeutic drug for the treatment of oral ‎squamous cell carcinoma‎: Silver nanoparticles green-formulated by ‎ ‎Matricaria chamomilla

Introduction In the present research, we formulated a modern chemotherapeutic drug by silver nanoparticles ‎‎(AgNPs) containing Matricaria chamomilla aqueous extract for the treatment of oral squamous ‎cell carcinoma. Material and methods Characterization of AgNPs was done by UV–Visible Spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Fourier ‎Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FT‐IR), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and ‎Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE‐SEM). For investigating the antioxidant ‎properties of AgNO3, M. chamomilla, and AgNPs, the DPPH test was used in the presence of ‎butylated hydroxytoluene as the positive control. To survey the cytotoxicity and anti-oral ‎squamous cell carcinoma effects of AgNO3, M. chamomilla, and AgNPs, MTT assay was used ‎on the HSC-4, Ca9-22, and HSC-3 cell lines. ‎ Results DPPH test revealed similar antioxidant potentials for M. chamomilla‎, AgNPs, and butylated ‎hydroxytoluene. Silver nanoparticles had very low cell viability and anti-oral squamous cell ‎carcinoma properties dose-dependently against HSC-4, Ca9-22, and HSC-3 cell lines without ‎any cytotoxicity on the normal cell line. The best result of anti-oral squamous cell carcinoma ‎properties of AgNPs against the above cell lines was seen in the case of the HSC-3 cell line. ‎ Conclusions According to the above findings, the silver nanoparticles containing M. chamomilla aqueous ‎extract can be administrated in humans for the treatment of several types of oral squamous cell ‎carcinoma. ‎