Abstract
Toxicity of synthesized nanoparticles is the area of concern to all the researchers due to their possible health implications. Here we synthesized copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) without surfactant at pH value of 2, 7, 10 and with cetyletrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) surfactant at pH 7. Synthesized nanoparticles were characterized for various structural parameters including crystallite size, lattice parameters, strain, phase analysis using X-ray diffraction analysis, and morphological aspects have been analyzed using FESEM and HRTEM imaging. All the four nano-formulations were analyzed for their toxic potential using Allium cepa L. at three different concentrations (0.1, 0.01 and 0.001 g/100 ml). Cytological and genetic parameters including mitotic index, mitotic inhibition, aberrant cells, binucleated cells, micronucleated cells, chromosomal bridges, fragmentation, stickiness, laggards, vagrants, c-mitosis and disturbed spindle were analyzed. Our results revealed a dose dependent increase in cytotoxic parameters including decreased total dividing cells, mitotic index, and increased mitotic inhibition. Genotoxic parameters also increased at higher treatment concentrations including chromosomal aberrations and percent aberrant cells. The pH value at the time of particle synthesis has significant influence on the crystallite size and agglomeration as assessed by XRD, FESEM and HRTEM analysis. The NPs synthesized at pH 2 and 10 were found to be of smaller size and posed more toxic effects as compared to particles synthesized at neutral pH. On the other hand, CTAB assisted CuO NPs synthesized at pH 7 revealed even smaller crystallite sizes and thus boost the toxicity in all the parameters as compared to NPs synthesized without CTAB. The present study suggested an increase in toxic parameters of synthesized CuO NPs with respect to crystallite size which is pH dependent. Addition of CTAB at pH 7 decreased the crystallite as well as particle size and enhanced the toxic potential. Further studies are recommended to analyze the effect of surfactant addition in toxicological studies on CuO NPs.
Highlights
Copper is one of indispensable elements for maintaining homeostasis in various types of organisms[15] and in its ionic form, it may lead to a toxic situation once they exceed the physiological tolerance range in vivo[16,17]
The observed peak positions are found to be in agreement with reported data in ICDD (International Center for Diffraction Data) card 41–254 and are indexed for monoclinic CuO lattice
The increase in pH value of the precursor solution increases the rate of combustion resulting in the production of highly porous and active CuO particles
Summary
Copper is one of indispensable elements for maintaining homeostasis in various types of organisms[15] and in its ionic form, it may lead to a toxic situation once they exceed the physiological tolerance range in vivo[16,17]. The studies related to assessment of toxicity of CuO NPs is of keen interest among researchers to explore their health effects, genotoxicity and carcinogenic effects[18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28]. Previous studies have proved that toxic effects of CuO NPs may involve oxidative stress as a major role player[30]. Allium cepa root test has been employed for finding genotoxic effects of different compounds like mitotic activity and chromosomal aberrations[32,33]. Allium cepa has been used in many other studies involving genotoxic evaluation of different metal compounds including copper[35,36,37]. Allium cepa L. has been used to investigate the effect of pH of precursor solution and CTAB coating on toxicological aspects of synthesized CuO NPs
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