Green synthesis of Zn-doped Catharanthus Roseus nanoparticles for enhanced anti-diabetic activity

Abstract

Recently, many studies have been interested in the bio-production of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) for biomedical applications using plants. However, green synthesized zinc-based nanoparticles (Zn-NPs) have not been reported previously. In this research, for the first time, we have prepared eco-friendly Zn-doped Catharanthus Roseus (C. roseus) plants using a facile photon induced method (PIM) for green biomaterials. Most importantly, the presence of phytoconstituents in the leaf extract of C. roseus plays a vital role in the development of NPs, as the phytoconstituents serve as reducing agents, which can be efficiently used for enhanced anti-diabetic performance. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) results confirmed the fabrication of the biosynthesized Zn-doped C. roseus plant. The prepared NPs revealed high crystallinity with a shifted band gap energy of 2.74 eV in the visible region. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed Zn-doped C. roseus surfaces decorated with functional groups. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images showed that the NPs are uniformly dispersed in a spherical shape with sizes ranging from 10 to 20 nm. In addition, an alpha-amylase inhibitory assay was employed to assess the anti-diabetic nature of the prepared Zn-doped C. roseus extract, and this was compared with a standard drug (Acarbose). The results showed that the biosynthesized NPs had encouraging inhibitory effects on the alpha-amylase (α-1,4-glucan-4-glucanohydrolase) enzyme. Therefore, the significant results of this work are the generation of value-added drugs from the C. roseus plant for biotechnology and nanomaterial-based industries.