Archna Talwar, A Nayyar, Shruti Anand, Manaal Zahera, Prachi Singh
The research focuses on conjugating biogenically synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) with glucose to analyse the inhibitory potential of ZnO nanoparticles against α-amylase. This study proposes, for the first time, that glucose-modified ZnO NPs may alleviate oxidative stress that hinders the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). ZnO NPs are synthesized by using an aqueous leaf extract of Solanum nigrum and characterized using different characterization techniques such as UV-Vis spectroscopy, FESEM, TEM, FTIR, DLS/Zeta and X-ray diffraction. The ZnO NPs were assessed for in vitro antioxidant potential, confirming better antioxidant potential of GC-NP (IC50 = 45.7 ± 0.18 µg/mL) than UC-NP (IC50 = 53.4 ± 0.031 µg/mL). The bio-functionalized ZnO NPs were evaluated for their α-amylase inhibitory activity, showing enhanced inhibition by GC-NP (IC50 = 521 ± 0.004 µg/mL) compared to UC-NP (IC50 = 530 ± 0.01 µg/mL), attributed to tailored surface interactions. Overall, the study highlights that biofunctionalized ZnO NPs exhibit promising potential as a future drug candidate for targeted drug delivery in diabetes management.