A comparative study of glutathione-coated iron oxide and glutathione-coated core-shell magnetic nanoparticles for their antiviral activities

Iron oxide nanoparticles and its nanocomposites have attracted attention because of their potential applications in biomedicine. Here, firstly the Fe3O4 nanoparticles were prepared and then Ag was deposited by reducing the Ag salt onto the surface of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles. This way, bimetallic nanoparticles were obtained. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized using ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction and the size and surface charge of the nanoparticles were determined by the dynamic light scattering (DLS) and zeta potential. The spectrographic data demonstrated the size of the glutathione-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles to be 4.48 nm and glutathione-coated core-shell magnetic nanoparticles to be 7.98 nm with the spherical morphology and well monodispersed. This study was also designed to investigate the inhibitory effect of Ag@Fe3O4-GSH, Fe3O4-GSH and glutathione (GSH) against Human Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 (HSV-1), Human Adenovirus Type 5, Human Poliovirus Type 1, and Bovine coronavirus. The significant inhibition of Ag@Fe3O4-GSH was observed against Poliovirus (4 Log), Adenovirus (3 Log), and HSV-1 (2 Log), respectively. GSH showed remarkable antiviral effect against Bovine coronavirus (3 Log) while it exhibited log reduction (1 Log) against HSV-1 and poliovirus. Fe3O4-GSH showed a reduction of 1 Log only for RNA viruses such as poliovirus and bovine coronavirus. These results demonstrate promising antiviral activity, highlighting the potential of these nanoparticles in combating viral infections.