Cytotoxic evaluation with aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) nanoparticles in human cancer cells

Al2O3 (aluminum oxide) has a special quality that makes it easy to use in many industrial applications. There are several cytotoxic studies available in the literature, but not much is known about their biological function when Al2O3 is present at optimized concentrations. The aim of the study was to determine the cytotoxicity against lung (A-549) and colorectal (Caco-2) cancer cells at very minute concentrations (5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 µg/mL) of Al2O3NPs. Initially, several equipment were used to characterize the aluminum oxide (Al2O3). For this, tools like X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were employed. The results showed that the nanoparticles (NPs) had a diameter of approximately 10-15 nm. MTT was employed for cytotoxicity investigation, whereas the NRU test, ROS, and qPCR analysis were used for genotoxicity examination. MTT and Neutral Red Uptake (NRU) assay with aluminum oxides (Al2O3), which indicates that loss in cell viability, was used to analyze the cytotoxicity. The genes like p53, BAX, and CASPASE-3 were found to be up-regulated in qPCR data, whereas BCL-2 was found to be down-regulated. These findings suggest that ROS and genotoxicity pathways are responsible for apoptosis. Al2O3 exhibits a moderate and dose-dependent effect on cancer cells, according to the cytotoxicity tests. Al2O3 has the ability to cause cell death by genotoxicity and ROS formation, as evident from the analysis.