Molecular and cytogenetic assessment of zinc nanoparticles on Vicia faba plant cells.

Abstract

Abstract Nanotechnology is an emerging multidisciplinary field with a wide range of applications in agriculture, cancer therapy, targeted drug delivery and cosmetic industry. Nevertheless, unspecified release of nanoparticles (NPs) into the ecosystem has raised global concern about their potential toxic effects. In the present study, the effect of different concentrations of ZnO NPs were evaluated on molecular DNA level, on mitotic and meiotic division of Vicia faba plant. The data obtained using ISSR assay showed change in bands number in all tested samples. The highest polymorphic bands recorded are 36 and 34 bands at samples treated with 50.00 and 37.50 μg/mL of ZnO NPs respectively, as compared with untreated plants. In addition to appearance and disappearance of bands in ISSR profiles, a decrease in genetic template stability (GTS) values was recorded with increasing the concentration. The GTS value recorded 58.62% with the highest concentration (50.00 μg/mL); while recorded 67.82% in samples treated with the lowest concentration (6.25 μg/mL) of ZnO NPs. High GTS value indicates that the genome is less prone to alterations in its DNA, whereas low GTS value indicates greater chances of DNA alteration. On the other hand, the cytotoxic effect of ZnO NPs as indicated by inhibiting mitotic and meiotic division and production of chromosomal aberrations such as chromosome breaks was confirmed by their effect on DNA profiles in Vicia faba plant. This study revealed that higher concentrations of Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) produce genotoxic effects which indirectly can cause health risks to the human populations. Further studies focused over elucidating the fate and behaviour of ZnO-NPs in complex environmental matrices are needed to safeguard ecosystem functioning as well as human kind. However, to the best of our understanding no molecular studies of ZnO-NPs on Vicia faba L. has been reported.