Bioactive and Biocompatible Nature of Green Synthesized Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles from Simarouba glauca DC.: An Endemic Plant to Western Ghats, India

Zinc-oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) synthesized from plant extracts are considered to possess superior biological activities compared to chemically synthesized nanoparticles and are of immediate interest to pharmaceutical and agriculture industries. The current study reports the green synthesis of ZnO-NPs from the aqueous leaf extract of Simarouba glauca for the first time. The physico-chemical characterization revealed hexagonal shaped nanoparticles with a size of similar to 17 to 37 nm calculated by Scherrer's formula with a purity of 98.51%. The FT-IR results confirmed that functional groups present in the plant extract had coagulated well to form a metal oxide during the synthesis process. The antioxidant potential of green synthesized ZnO-NPs evaluated by different methods revealed significant (p <= 0.05) radical scavenging activity (5% to 59%) with IC50 value falling between 400 and 500 mu g mL(-1) among the test methods. The green synthesized nanoparticles also inhibited the mitotic cell division up to 17.46% with increase in concentration. Further, the haemolytic assay by spectroscopic analysis affirmed the biocompatible nature of the nanoparticles which was also evidenced through SEM studies. The present findings indicate that the green synthesized ZnO-NPs from S. glauca possess antioxidant and antimitotic properties apart from possessing biocompatible nature to RBCs thereby warranting in vivo studies. Graphic