Albumin binding and cytotoxicity assay of nickel oxide nanoparticles against primary hippocampal neural cells

Abstract

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely used in medical and therapeutic<br />applications. However, their albumin binding and their cytotoxicity assays have<br />not been well explored. In his study, the interaction of NiO NPs with human serum<br />albumin (HSA) was explored by circular dichroism (CD) study, molecular docking<br />and dynamic studies. Afterwards the cytotoxicity of NiO NPs against primary<br />hippocampal neural cells was explored by MTT and morphological assays. The<br />CD experiment revealed that NiO NPs do not stimulate any significant structural<br />changes within the HSA structure. The molecular docking investigation showed<br />that NiO nanoclusters bind to HSA molecule through hydrophilic interactions and<br />NiO nanoclusters with different sizes show different docking scores for interaction<br />with HSA. The Molecular dynamic study also revealed that minor structural<br />changes in HSA structure occur after interaction with NiO NPs. Cellular assay<br />displayed that incubation of NiO NPs with primary hippocampal neural cells for<br />24 h triggered a significant cytotoxicity and morphological changes. Therefore, it<br />may be concluded that although NiO NPs may show a strong binding affinity to<br />HSA and do not induce a remarkable rearrangement in the structure of HSA, they<br />may induce some unwanted effects on the cell viability