Inhibitory effect comparison of the needle, spherical, and mesoporous hydroxyapatite nanoparticles on MCF-7 breast cancer cell line proliferation: An <i>in vitro</i> assay

Abstract

Hydroxyapatite (HAp), the main calcium phosphate and the most inorganic compounds in hard tissues, exhibits sound cytocompatibility and osteogenic activity for clinical bone replacement and tissue engineering. HAp nanostructures depict the more special characteristics than HAp microstructures in various features such as physical, chemical and biological properties. Besides, outstanding characteristics of HAp in bone tissue engineering, recently, inhibitory effects of nanoscaled HAp in different tumor cells proliferation and especially breast cancer was fully detailed and discussed in the literature. Here for the first time, we propose the capability of three needle, spherical, and mesoporous HAp nanoparticles for inhibition of cancer cell proliferation <em>in vitro</em>. The comparison of the three morphologies of HAp nanoparticles was carried out by MTT assay. The results showed that the proliferation of the cancer cell line was reduced by more than 73% after treatment with the Hap nanoparticles for 3 days. The best inhibitory effect was obtained for the needle-shaped HAp nanoparticles that were assigned to their diffusivity into the cell membrane. These results propose that nanoscaled HAp could inhibit cancer cell growth and proliferation, so these nanomaterials can be considered as promising materials in clinical cancer therapy.