Strontium ferrite as a nontoxic nanomaterial to improve metabolism in a diabetic model of Drosophila melanogaster

Nanomaterials have gained enormous importance in the last few decades in various fields including medical science. Diabetes is one of the most serious health concerns, which remain untreated due to inherent drug deficiencies and limitations of administration mutes, such as the adverse effects of prolonged subcutaneous injection and challenges involved in oral administration. Besides this, huge treatment cost of the used therapies often leads to huge burden to the patients. The current study describes synthesis of hexagonal strontium ferrite nanomaterials and checked their potentiality to reduce the metabolic effects in a Drosophila model of diabetes. The nanomaterials were prepared by a low-cost digital ultrasonic wave method and characterized using FTIR and XRD to determine the corresponding functional groups. The obtained XRD pattern was fitted with Rietveld refinement method for structural analysis, which shows that the samples crystallized have a hexagonal crystal lattice with the space group P6(3)/mmc. FESEM and EDS analysis were performed for surface analysis showing the average size of the nanoparticles as 600 nm and high weight percentage of Sr and Fe. The Zeta potential of SrFe was also carried out to analyze the surface charge. To validate the non-toxicity of the nanomaterials, various concentrations of SrFe were mixed with the food and orally administered to Drosophila melanogaster model system. Behavioral activities and gut morphology of third instar larvae were checked, which showed toxic effects only at the high concentration of treatment (80 mu g/ml). SrFe impacts the hatching percentage of pupa and the adult as well as fly survival which showed an increase in survival percentage. Diabetic flies were generated by feeding on a high-fat diet (HFD) and treated with the nanomaterials. A dose-dependent decrease in the metabolic level was seen in the treated flies. A significant improvement in the fly weight and reduced ROS level was also observed in the diabetic flies after SrFe treatment. Thus, the current study reports the use of SrFe nanomaterial as a non-cytotoxic and non-genotoxic material having potentiality to be used in the treatment of metabolic disorder alone or as a combinational therapy.