Anticancer activity of vanadium nanoparticles against human breast cancer: an <i>in vitro</i> study

Cancer is a multifactorial disease derived from uncontrolled cell proliferation with high mortality and morbidity rates as well as metastatic capability. It remains to be one of the serious public health problems worldwide. This study investigates the potential anticancer activities of newly synthesized solid lipid nanoformulation loaded with vanadyl sulfate on human breast adenocarcinoma cells (MCF-7) comprising the morphological and ultrastructural changes. MTT assay, confocal microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), flow cytometry, immunohistochemical analyses were used methods in this study. Vanadyl sulfate loaded SLNs were found to have anticancer activity on MCF-7 cells being cytotoxic and antiproliferative, and proapoptotic by leading to morphological and ultrastructural changes. Also, these SLNs augmented E-cadherin, Cyclin B-1 and D-1 expression levels on MCF-7 cells. Our findings indicate the potency of newly synthesized vanadyl sulfate SLNs are encouraging for further investigations for designing a new anticancer drug as an alternative for current anticancer agents.