ZnO nanoparticles: Cytological effect on chick fibroblast cells and antimicrobial activities towards Escherichia Coli and Bacillus subtilis

The synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles and their cytological effects on chick fibroblast cells and antimicrobial activities towards Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) and Bacillus Subtilis (B. Subtilis) are reported. The ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by non-protonated process using p-xylene (C₆H₄(CH₃)₂) and zinc acetate di-hydrate (Zn(CH₃COO)₂ · 2H₂O) and characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray powder diffractometer (XRD), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy which confirmed the high-density growth, well-crystallinity, pure and wurtzite hexagonal phase for prepared nanoparticles. To investigate the cytological effect on chick fibroblast cells, as-synthesized ZnO nanoparticles were treated as dose dependent manner at 24 h incubation. The viability of the cells was analyzed by MTT method. At 24 h, the % cell death was found to vary from 18, 51 and 62% at 5, 50 and 100 μg/ml concentrations of ZnO nanoparticles, respectively. The reactive oxygen species (ROS) was also measured with fibroblast cells using various doses of ZnO nanoparticles and ROS was measured as 121, 189 and 210% at nanoparticle concentrations of 5, 50 and 100 μg/mL, respectively. Additionally, as-synthesized ZnO nanoparticles were also tested against pathogenic bacteria E. Coli and B. Subtilis via disk diffusion method and nanoparticles exhibited good inhibition of microbial strains.