Mitochondrial Biology Lab

Nanoparticles with enzyme-like activity gained significant importance in therapeutic applications against oxidative stress-related disorders. Particularly, nanozymes having multiple SOD and GPx activity attracted greater attention recently. These nanoenzymes mimic cellular antioxidant enzymes and protect biomolecules against ROS. Therefore, the synthesis of a novel nanomaterial with robust antioxidant property is of significant biomedical importance. Therefore, the present study focused on to synthesize a novel ZnO and Cu-doped ZnO (Cu-ZnO) based nanoparticles to mimic the SOD enzyme. The Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized successfully by Chemical Precipitation/Co-precipitation method and the doping were confirmed by spectroscopic methods including, SEM, TEM, Raman Spectroscopy, PXRD and XPS. In vitro studies highlight that, the Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles did not exhibit robust SOD activity as compared to earlier reported Mn3O4 based nanozymes. Therefore, additional methodologies are currently employed to synthesize different morphology-based nanoparticles of Cu-doped with ZnO.