An assessment of acute oral toxicity of ZnO nanoparticles on serum biochemical function of liver in mice

With the industrialization of the nanotechnology, public exposure to nanoparticles will increase in the near future. So, health impacts of nanoparticles have rarely been studied. The main aim of this study was to assess acute toxicity of ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) on serum biochemical function of liver in mice (Mus musculus). In this experimental study, a group of 18 BALB/c mice was randomly divided into three groups: two ZnO-NPs mice groups and one control group. The first day of the experiment, ZnO-NPs were received orally in acute doses of 0.05 g/ml and 0.1g/ml in the experimental groups, while in the untreated (control) group, no ZnO-NPs were used and they received distilled water 1 g/ml. The experiment lasted for 14 days. The serum was obtained by centrifugation of the whole blood at 3000 rpm for 15 min. Serum concentration of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) was assayed using auto analyzer system. The present study showed that both doses of Zno-NPs increased significantly ALP, ALT, and AST enzymes compared with the control (P=0.01). However, LDH elevated in mice treated just with ZnO-NPs with a dose of 0.1g/ml. This showed that ZnO-NPs at acute doses could induce a severe liver damage (P=0.01). The current study results show that acute levels of ZnO-NPs are toxic and have harmful effects on liver function as indicated by increased levels of biochemical serum parameters of liver. Therefore, it is necessary to be cautious in the use of these nanoparticles