Photo-catalytic Killing of HeLa Cancer Cells Using Facile Synthesized Pure and Ag Loaded WO₃ Nanoparticles

Chemotherapy, the most commonly used therapeutic method for cancer, has the inherent constraint of low bioavailability. A number of physical cancer therapeutic treatments like radiation, ultrasound, photo-acoustic/photo thermal, microwave therapies are based on locating the afflicted sites with the help of imaging, but the serious drawbacks of these treatment options are that they damage the neighboring normal tissues and/or induce undesired cancer metastasis. In addition, these methods of treatment are very expensive and not in the reach of a common man especially in the developing countries. Therefore, innovative, less invasive and cost effective treatment methods with the help of less toxic drugs have been sought for treating cancer. In this work, photo-catalytic method of killing cancer cells, using the nanostructured silver loaded tungsten oxide (Ag/WO₃) as photo-catalysts, in conjunction with broadband UV radiation is presented. Ag/WO₃with two different mass ratios of Ag and WO₃ (1% Ag/WO₃ and 3% Ag/WO₃) were synthesized, characterized and these nanostructured materials served as photo-catalysts in the process of killing cancer cells by photo-catalytic method. The advantage of loading Ag in WO₃ is quite evident from the observed increase in the photo-catalytic killing of the HeLa cells. This photo-catalytic enhancement was effectively caused by the development of Schottky junction between Ag in WO₃, which led to a substantial inhibition of photo-generated charge recombination and also by the stimulation of surface plasmon resonance in silver nanoparticles, which led to the enhanced visible light absorption by the material.