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

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely used in medical and therapeuticapplications. However, their albumin binding and their cytotoxicity assays havenot been well explored. In his study, the interaction of NiO NPs with human serumalbumin (HSA) was explored by circular dichroism (CD) study, molecular dockingand dynamic studies. Afterwards the cytotoxicity of NiO NPs against primaryhippocampal neural cells was explored by MTT and morphological assays. TheCD experiment revealed that NiO NPs do not stimulate any significant structuralchanges within the HSA structure. The molecular docking investigation showedthat NiO nanoclusters bind to HSA molecule through hydrophilic interactions andNiO nanoclusters with different sizes show different docking scores for interactionwith HSA. The Molecular dynamic study also revealed that minor structuralchanges in HSA structure occur after interaction with NiO NPs. Cellular assaydisplayed that incubation of NiO NPs with primary hippocampal neural cells for24 h triggered a significant cytotoxicity and morphological changes. Therefore, itmay be concluded that although NiO NPs may show a strong binding affinity toHSA and do not induce a remarkable rearrangement in the structure of HSA, theymay induce some unwanted effects on the cell viability