THE CYTOTOXICITY OF PURE AND Ag-DOPED ZnO NANOSTRUCTURES
Naumenko K1 Zagorodnya S1 Myroniuk L2 Ievtushenko I.2
1D.K. Zabolotny Institute of Microbiology and Virology of the NAS of Ukraine,
Department of virus reproduction
2I.M. Frantsevich Institute for problems in materials science of the NAS of Ukraine
e-mail: krystyn.naumenko@gmail.com
Recent advancements in nanotechnology have provided unique opportunities in the field of drug development programs. Nanoparticles are known as major products of nanotechnologies and their unique properties make them suitable for different biomedical applications such as drug delivery, medical diagnostics, and therapeutics. In particular, it’s shown that they have a wide range of biological activity, such as antitumor, antioxidant, etc. During the last years, metal nanoparticles are studied against a wide range of pathogens including bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses.
Among metal nanoparticles, silver and zinc oxide nanoparticles might have antiviral and virucidal activity. Also, interesting is the combination of different nanoparticles and nanostructure. With the rapidly growing interest in nanoparticle research, the toxicity of nanoparticles is becoming a more and more important issue in nanotechnology. Thus, in our work, we study cytotoxicity of pure and Ag-doped ZnO nanostructures (NS) which were deposited on silicon and sapphire substrates by decomposition of metalorganic compounds at atmospheric pressure. Cytotoxic effect of pure and Ag-doped ZnO NS was studied in two epithelial cell lines at 24, 48 and 72 hours using the MTT method.
Atmospheric pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition (APMOCVD) method was used for growing of pure and Ag-doped ZnO NS by decomposition of zinc and argentum acetylacetonates (Zn(AA)) and (Ag(AA)). The deposition process at this method takes place in a tubular furnace with a temperature gradient between two zones: the high-temperature zone is used for substrate placing while the low-temperature zone for precursor evaporator.
It was found that the silicon and sapphire substrates, which were used for ZnO growth, did not have cytotoxic effects in cell cultures. It was shown that pure ZnO NS, deposited on sapphire substrates, were cytotoxic, percentage of inhibition of mitochondrial activity exceeded 82-93% for MDBK cell line and 84-96% for MDCK cell line during 24, 48, and 72h. Ag-doped ZnO NS, grown on silicon substrates, were highly toxic in the MDBK cell line but exhibited no inhibition effect in the MDCK cell line. The diluted samples of all studied ZnO NS did not show a cytotoxic effect on both epithelial cell lines. It should be noted that for all samples we determined the doze-depended effect since with increased dilution the cytotoxicity increased.
This investigation sheds light on the cytotoxicity the Ag-doping of ZnO nanostructures has in different cell lines.
Acknowledgments. This work was partially supported by the research projects of the NAS of Ukraine “The development of photocatalytic nanocomposites for viruses inactivation in the air” (№40/20-Н) and “Development of innovative photocatalytic nanostructured materials based on ZnO and TiO2” (528/IPM-11/20).