Facile Synthesis and In Vitro Biological Screening of Pd@SiO2 Core–Shell Nanoparticles

Abstract

In this study, semiconductor core–shell Pd@SiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by Stober’s method. The prepared final products were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, SEM, HR-TEM and EDX techniques. Cell viability of Pd@SiO2 NPs against HeLa cell line was screened by MTT assay. The present study indicates that the core–shell Pd@SiO2 NPs are extremely stable along with very high photodynamic efficiency under LED light illumination. The antibacterial activities of core– shell Pd@SiO2 NPs were determined with Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus by agar diffusion method. DNA binding affinity of the core–shell Pd@SiO2 NPs towards CT-DNA was also investigated. The observed results showed that SiO2 supported on the surface of Pd NPs not only prevented aggregation, but also proved the enhanced antimicrobial and DNA binding propensities than the free Pd NPs.