Potential pharmaceutical applications and molecular docking study for green fabricated ZnO nanoparticles mediated Raphanus sativus: In vitro and in vivo study

The use of plant extracts as potent reducing agents for the environmentally friendly production of nanoparticles (NPs) has recently attracted the interest of scientists. NPs have received high attention because of their novel properties. The aim of the present study is to biosynthesize zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) using Raphanus sativus and study their effect as antibacterial, anticancer, antiviral, and antidiabetic, agents, NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors, and inducers of phagocytosis and autophagy. The antibacterial, anticancer, and antiviral activities of ZnO NPs were investigated using different assays: well diffusion assay, MTT assay, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, reactive oxygen species generation, and apoptosis assay. Meanwhile, immunofluorescent assay, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and flow cytometry were used for detection of autophagy and phagocytosis. Docking was also achieved to study their binding mode as well as affinity within the target enzymes (glucosamine-6-phosphate synthase) (PDB:1MOQ) active site, estrogen receptor (PDB:3ERT) active site, and tubulin receptor (PDB:4O2B) active site. The results demonstrated that the ZnO NPs have an inhibitory role against bacteria and the proliferation of lung cancer cells (A549). IC50 was 22.78 mu g/mL for A549 cells. For MCF-10, was 272.24 mu g/mL, antiviral activity against influenza virus, and antidiabetic agent. Conversely, the results showed the ability of ZnO NPs to reduce inflammasome activity via induction of autophagy. The study's findings show that R. sativus can be easily and effectively used to synthesize ZnO NPs, and they also highlight the ZnO NPs' considerable potential as antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitor, antidiabetic agent, and phagocytosis and autophagy inducer. Based on our findings, the green synthesized ZnO NPs could be used as promising therapeutic agents for biomedical applications.