REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1600347
This article is part of the Research TopicPharmacological Advancements of Novel Natural-Based NanomedicinesView all 3 articles
Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles from plant extracts: A comprehensive review focused on anticancer therapy
Provisionally accepted
Pratibha Pandey1
Sorabh Lakhanpal2Ashok Kumar Bishoyi3S Renuka Jyothi4Swati Mishra5Meenakshi Verma6Ajay Singh7
Waqas Alam Mir8*
Dr. Fahad Khan9*- 1Centre for Research Impact and Outcome, Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Rajpura, 140401, Punjab, Rajpura, India
- 2School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India
- 3Marwadi University, Rajkot, Gujarat, India
- 4Jain University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
- 5Siksha O Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
- 6Chandigarh University, Mohali, Punjab, India
- 7Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
- 8King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia
- 9Saveetha Medical College & Hospital, Chennai, India
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Cancer is a deadly disease and is one of the primary causes of mortality worldwide. Cancer therapy presents significant challenges, such as chemotherapy resistance, high toxicity, recurrence, and metastasis. As a result, the development of novel therapeutic agents for cancer continues to be a top goal to expand the number of efficient treatments available. The advent of nanotechnology is an important turning point in several scientific disciplines. Owing to the increasing difficulty of this problem, researchers have begun to focus their attention on the possibility of employing plants or extracts from plants as a potential tumor treatment. More than 3,000 medicinal plant species have been documented worldwide for their utilization in cancer treatment. Nevertheless, crude plant extracts lack specificity, and their dosages are not clearly specified. To enhance the therapeutic efficacy of these natural substances, researchers have used them in conjunction with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Plants possess intricate phytochemical components including sugars, polyphenols, amino acids, flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, and proteins, which can function as reducing and stabilizing agents. In recent years, the application of plant-derived AgNPs has increased significantly, particularly in cancer treatment. These green-synthesized AgNPs are regarded as outstanding tools for the detection of cancer and targeted drug delivery at the tumor site. By leveraging the distinctive characteristics of nanoparticles and the antioxidant and anticancer qualities of plants, these green-synthesized AgNPs selectively eradicate tumor cells while sparing normal healthy cells. This comprehensive review aimed to summarize the key aspects of plant extracts as anticancer agents, biosynthesis of AgNPs, and recent advancements in the antitumor efficacy of green-synthesized AgNPs.
Keywords: Plant Extracts, silver nanoparticles, Green synthesis, anticancer, Nanotechnology
Received: 26 Mar 2025; Accepted: 24 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pandey, Lakhanpal, Bishoyi, Jyothi, Mishra, Verma, Singh, Mir and Khan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Waqas Alam Mir, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, 31982, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia
Dr. Fahad Khan, Saveetha Medical College & Hospital, Chennai, India
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.