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

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely used in medical and therapeutic applications. However, their albumin binding and their cytotoxicity assays have not been well explored. In his study, the interaction of NiO NPs with human serum albumin (HSA) was explored by circular dichroism (CD) study, molecular docking and dynamic studies. Afterwards the cytotoxicity of NiO NPs against primary hippocampal neural cells was explored by MTT and morphological assays. The CD experiment revealed that NiO NPs do not stimulate some significant structural changes within the HSA structure. The molecular docking investigation showed that NiO nanoclusters bind to HSA molecule through hydrophilic interactions and NiO nanoclusters with different sizes show different docking scores for interaction with HSA. The Molecular dynamic study also revealed that minor structural changes in HSA structure occur after interaction with NiO NPs. Cellular assay displayed that incubation of NiO NPs with primary hippocampal neural cells for 24 h triggered a significant cytotoxicity and morphological changes. Therefore, it may be concluded that although NiO NPs may show a strong binding affinity to HSA and do not induce a remarkable rearrangement in the structure of HSA, they may induce some unwanted effects on the cell viability.