Formulation of a novel anti-leukemia drug and evaluation of its therapeutic effects in comparison with Cytarabine

In the recent research, we investigated the application of gold nanoparticles green-synthesized by Alhagi maurorum aqueous extract in the treatment of several types of leukemia, i.e. acute T cell leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and acute myeloid leukemia. Different techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy analysis were used to characterize AuNPs. The TEM images show a spherical morphology for AuNPs with the range size of 21 to 59 for the synthetic nanoparticles. In the antioxidant test, the IC50 of AuNPs and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) against DPPH free radicals were 117 and 87 µg/mL, respectively. In the oncological part of the recent study, the treated cells with AuNPs and Cytarabine were assessed by MTT assay for 48 h about the cytotoxicity and anti-leukemia properties on normal (HUVEC) and leukemia cell lines i.e., acute myeloid leukemia (Human HL-60/vcr and 32D-FLT3-ITD), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (MOLT-3 and TALL-104), and acute T cell leukemia (J.RT3-T3.5 and Jurkat, Clone E6-1). The IC50 of AuNPs were 242, 297, 383, 207, 234, and 218 µg/mL against acute myeloid leukemia (Human HL-60/vcr and 32D-FLT3-ITD), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (MOLT-3 and TALL-104), and acute T cell leukemia (J.RT3-T3.5 and Jurkat, Clone E6-1) cell lines, respectively. In addition, the IC50 of Cytarabine were 117, 113, 145, 119, 131, and 135 µg/mL against acute myeloid leukemia (Human HL-60/vcr and 32D-FLT3-ITD), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (MOLT-3 and TALL-104), and acute T cell leukemia (J.RT3-T3.5 and Jurkat, Clone E6-1) cell lines, respectively. The viability of malignant leukemia cell line reduced dose-dependently in the presence of AuNPs and Cytarabine.