Elucidation the toxicity mechanism of metal oxide and carbon-based nanoparticles with p53 protein using molecular docking approach

Metal oxide and carbon-based nanoparticles (NP) have a wide range of application in various fields, including paint, electroluminescent, pharmaceutical, and other industries. In the last decade, there is an exceeding demand of the applications using these particles in biomedical sciences such as in drug delivery system whereas these materials are also used widely in the environmental applications. Due to their extensive applications, these materials are the class of highest global annual production. The information of the potentially harmful effect of these nanoparticles lags behind their increased use in consumer products and therefore, the safety data on various nanoparticles applicable for risk assessment is urgently needed. The availability of less information of toxicity and harmful effects on the human biological system of these particles, there is a need to understand the toxicity of metal oxides and carbon-based nanoparticles. In the present study, we elucidate the toxic impact of the metal oxide and carbon-based nanoparticles on p53 DNA binding domain protein using molecular docking approach. Furthermore, we also explore the binding phenomenon between the p53 protein and nanoparticles (metal oxide and carbon-based NP) using the same molecular docking approach. The study illustrates that metal oxide based nanomaterial has a high binding affinity toward the DNA binding domain of p53 protein as compared to carbon-based nanoparticles, this happens because the metal oxide nanoparticles formed hydrogen and metal acceptor bonds whereas in the case of carbon-based nanoparticles only van der Waal interactions were identified in the molecular interaction. Due to the binding of these nanoparticles, DNA is unable to interact with binding domain site which may lead to deactivation of the tumor suppressing nature of the p53 protein.