Biosynthesis of metallic silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has gained much interest and offers an attractive alternate to physical and chemical approaches. In recent year several safe, easy, cost-effective, reproducible, and environmentally friendly synthesis approaches for silver nanoparticles have been developed. In this research work, a simple, cheap, and unexplored method was applied on green synthesis of AgNPs using secondary metabolites extracted from Bixa orellana seeds. The seeds are rich of flavonoids and phenolic compounds which presumably responsible for the fast reduction and stabilization of silver ion into silver nanoparticles. The biosynthesis process is very likely to be able to reduce silver ions under simple physiological conditions. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) that was appeared at 420 nm in UV–vis spectrum, had confirmed the formation of AgNPs. Moreover, the functional groups in secondary metabolite that act as reducing, capping and stabilizing agents for silver nanoparticles, are identified by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. An X-ray diffraction analysis generated four peaks for Bixa orellana seed extract mediated AgNPs positioned at 2θ angles of 38.1°, 44.2°, 64.6°, and 77.5° corresponding to crystal planes (111), (200), (220), and (311). Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images confirmed the formation of nanosized silver particles. The z-average of the synthesized particles measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS) was found to be 92.9 nm. AgNPs synthesized exhibited remarkable antioxidant activity, antibacterial and antiproliferative activity against human breast (MCF-7) cell line. On the basis of our results, we conclude that biologically synthesized AgNPs exhibited favorable characteristics and have the potential to be used in biomedical fields.
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