BSA-Decorated Magnesium Nanoparticles for Scavenging Hydrogen Peroxide from Human Hepatic Cells

Inorganic nanomaterials have gathered significant attention due to their biological enzyme-like catalytic activities, which are currently being utilized to display excellent biomedical applications. Among these, inorganic nanomaterials exhibiting catalase enzyme-like properties are of particular interest because they can impart protection to mammalian cells from cellular hydrogen peroxide (H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf>) and other free radicals. In this study, we have investigated the utility of bovine serum albumin (BSA) coated magnesium nanoparticles (BSA-MgNPs) with respect to the protection of mammalian hepatic cells with depleted cellular catalase enzyme. We observed that BSA-MgNPs lead to the rapid breakdown of H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf> and therefore protect mammalian cells exposed to 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole (3-AT), an irreversible catalase enzyme inhibitor. Results revealed that 3-AT induces oxidative stress by challenging the glutathione (GSH) and catalase enzyme, thus altering the cellular redox balance, which leads to the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in human hepatocytes (WRL-68). Results showed that BSA-MgNPs impart protection to the catalase depleted hepatic cells. Expression analysis showed that BSA-MgNPs favorably modulate cellular antioxidant proteins/enzymes and genes such as catalase, thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), peroxiredoxin 6 (Prx6), and Hsp 70 (heat shock protein). These results conclude that BSA-MgNPs impart protection to WRL-68 cells from acatalasia to display better cell survival as well as a remarkable decrease in the intracellular ROS levels.