Facile synthesis of ferromagnetic Ni doped CeO2 nanoparticles with enhanced anticancer activity

Abstract Ni x Ce 1− x O 2 (where x  = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05 and 0.07) nanoparticles were synthesized by soft chemical method and were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman, UV–vis absorption spectroscopy and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). XRD and Raman results indicated the formation of single phase cubic fluorite structure for the synthesized nanoparticles. Ni dopant induced excessive structural changes such as decrease in crystallite size as well as lattice constants and enhancement in oxygen vacancies in CeO 2 crystal structure. These structural variations significantly influenced the optical and magnetic properties of CeO 2 nanoparticles. The synthesized Ni x Ce 1− x O 2 nanoparticles exhibited room temperature ferromagnetic behavior. Ni doping induced effects on the cytotoxicity of CeO 2 nanoparticles were examined against HEK-293 healthy cell line and SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cancer cell line. The prepared Ni x Ce 1− x O 2 nanoparticles demonstrated differential cytotoxicity. Furthermore, anticancer activity of CeO 2 nanoparticles observed to be significantly enhanced with Ni doping which was found to be strongly correlated with the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. The prepared ferromagnetic Ni x Ce 1− x O 2 nanoparticles with differential cytotoxic nature may be potential for future targeted cancer therapy.