The combined antibacterial and anticancer properties of nano Ce-containing Mg-phosphate ceramic.

The development of new bioresorbable ceramics substituted with therapeutic ions is an area of interest to scientists. This paper was mainly aimed to synthesize Ce-containing Mg-phosphate ceramic nanoparticles as a multifunctional material. Two ceramics based on Mg3 (PO4)2 and Ce0.2Mg2.8(PO4)2 formulas (denoted MP and MP-C, respectively) were synthesized. Ce was selected in this study due to excellent catalytic activities resulted from the rapid interchange of Ce3+/Ce4+ oxidation states. The synthesized powders were characterized by XRD, TEM, Zeta potential and FTIR. Also, their dissolution behavior was tested in Tris-HCl buffer solution. Moreover, the antimicrobial efficacy was evaluated against gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus sphaericus MTCC 511 &Staphylococcus aureus MTCC 87) and gram-negative bacteria (Enterobacter aerogenes MTCC 111 &Pseudomonas aeruginosa MTCC 1034) using dick diffusion assay and microdilution method. Furthermore, cell viability test was performed for the ceramics on Vero cells (African green monkey kidney cells), and their antitumor activity was determined by PC3 cell line (prostatic cancer). The results showed that substitution of Mg by Ce was decreased the particle size from 40 to 90 nm for MP sample to 2-10 nm for MP-C sample and increased the degradation rate. The synthesized Mg3 (PO4)2 and Ce0.2Mg2.8(PO4)2 showed excellent antimicrobial activities. The cell tests represented that MP ceramic was more viable than MP-C on Vero cells at high concentrations, whereas, MP-C showed more antitumor activity on PC3 cells than MP sample.