Cytotoxicity Studies of TiO2/ZnO Nanocomposites on Cervical Cancer Cells

Objective: Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide.Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most important element in this disease.The aim of this study is to prepare TiO2/ZnO nanocomposite (NC), titanium dioxide (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO)nanoparticles (NPs) to determine the anticancer activity on human CC cell line (HeLa) and healthy mouse fibroblast cell line (L-929). Materials&Methods: ZnO, TiO2 NPs and NC were prepared by a solution combustion synthesis method. The samples were characterized by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy. Stability analysis was performed with zeta potential. The synthesized NC and NPs were permormed to the HeLa and L-929 cell lines and anticancer activity of these NC and NPs were determined by using MTT method. The HeLa and L-929 cells were treated with different concentrations of these NC and NPs (0,5-100 μg/ml) for 24, 48 and 72 hours. The spectrophotometric readings at 570 nm were recorded and analysed with Graphpad Prism7. Results: NC and NPs were successfully synthesized. The effects of these NC and NPs on the HeLa and L-929 cells were compared with the control group and IC50 values were determined for 24, 48 and 72 hours. Then we compared the effects of these molecules on the L-929 cell line with the HeLa cell line and founded more active is on HeLa cells. Conclusion:There are many drugs used in CC treatment. However, undesirable toxicity and drug resistance of these drugs negatively affect treatment.We have synthesized NC and NPs in order to formulate basis of a new drug in this study and have identified anti-cancer activity.As a result, we found that NC and NPs anti-cancer activity was higher in HeLa cells than in L-929.