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Inorganic nanomaterials have gathered significant attention due to their biological enzyme-like catalytic activities, which are currently being utilized to display excellent biomedical applications. Among these, inorganic nanomaterials exhibiting catalase enzyme-like properties are of particular interest because they can impart protection to mammalian cells from cellular hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and other free radicals. In this study, we have investigated the utility of bovine serum albumin (BSA) coated magnesium nanoparticles (BSA-MgNPs) with respect to the protection of mammalian hepatic cells with depleted cellular catalase enzyme. We observed that BSA-MgNPs lead to the rapid breakdown of H2O2 and therefore protect mammalian cells exposed to 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole (3-AT), an irreversible catalase enzyme inhibitor. Results revealed that 3-AT induces oxidative stress by challenging the glutathione (GSH) and catalase enzyme, thus altering the cellular redox balance, which leads to the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in human hepatocytes (WRL-68). Results showed that BSA-MgNPs impart protection to the catalase depleted hepatic cells. Expression analysis showed that BSA-MgNPs favorably modulate cellular antioxidant proteins/enzymes and genes such as catalase, thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), peroxiredoxin 6 (Prx6), and Hsp 70 (heat shock protein). These results conclude that BSA-MgNPs impart protection to WRL-68 cells from acatalasia to display better cell survival as well as a remarkable decrease in the intracellular ROS levels.

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Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are extensively used for a wide range of applications due to their exceptionally high surface area. MOF particles are conventionally in micron size, but the nanosized MOFs show good transportation/mobility due to their small size, and when combined with the high surface area of MOFs, it makes MOF nanoparticles an ideal candidate to study for environmental remediation. Therefore, it is important to study the ecotoxicological impact of these MOFs. In this study, we developed rhodamine labelled nanoparticles of zinc imidazolate metal organic framework (ZIF-8 MOFs) as a means of in vivo tracing the MOF translocation in C. elegans. Rhodamine B isothiocyanate functionalized ZIF-8 MOFs nanoparticles (RBITC@ZIF-8 MOF nanoparticles; size 44 ± 7 nm) were fed to the worms naturally within a concentration range of 0.16–16.4 μg mg−1. Fluorescence was detected in the pharyngeal and gut lumen regions of the worms after 4 h of treatment, for exposure concentrations >0.163 μg mg−1. A higher intensity of fluorescence was observed at the end of 24 h for all exposure concentrations. Worms treated with RBITC@ZIF-8 MOF concentrations of ≥1.63 μg mg−1 for 24 h showed a bright stable fluorescence signal at the tail region. The uptake of RBITC@ZIF-8 MOF for an exposure concentration of 0.163, 1.63, and 8.2 μg mg−1 was found to be 52.1, 11.4 and 28.6%, respectively. Through this study, we showed that RBITC@ZIF-8 MOFs can be exposed to C. elegans and imaged at low concentrations of ∼0.16 μg mg−1.

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