Cytotoxicity and apoptosis induction of zinc ferrite nanoparticle through the oxidative stress pathway in human breast cancer cells

The nanoparticles of Zinc ferrite have been broadly used in various fields such as solar cells, photocatalysis, hydrogen storage, sensors etc. Here, the zinc ferrite nanoparticles (ZnFe(2)O(4)NPs) was prepared via solution process and characterized in detail with instruments such as XRD, FESEM, TEM, FTIR and TGA. The characterization studies revealed that the average individual size of each NP is similar to 27 +/- 1 nm size. The FTIR shows the functional band of metal and oxygen was obtained at 570 cm(-1). Although, the processing and use of zinc iron oxide based nanostructures are very widely utilized in industries but a limited studies are available towards the biological studies. The current work explores the application of ZnFe(2)O(4)NPs with the concentration range from 2 to 200 mu g/mL against breast cancer cells (MCF-7) to examine the cytotoxicity of oxidative stress and morphological variations using MTT, NRU, LPO, GSH assays after 24 h of treatment. Dose dependent drop in cell survival was seen in MTT and NRU assays. A significant increase in LPO was observed in MCF-7 cells exposed to ZnFe(2)O(4)NPs after 24 h of treatment. However, the GSH levels in MCF-7 cells exposed to ZnFe(2)O(4)NPs decreased significantly after 24 h. Further, the study of apoptotic gene expression was seen by real time PCR analysis was also conducted and described.