Eucalyptus camaldulensis Extract Mediated Green Synthesis of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles and In Vitro and In Vivo...

Natural products and their secondary metabolites have long been known as good bioresources in the synthesis of nanomaterials. In this paper, IONPs were synthesized by an eco-friendly method using the aqueous extract of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and evaluated for their physicochemical properties, enzyme inhibitory activity, pharmacological potential, and molecular docking. The synthesized IONPs were subsequently characterized by UV-Vis, FTIR, and SEM techniques to determine the functional groups and surface morphology. In addition to that, the synthesized IONPs were also tested in terms of in vitro (urease, carbonic anhydrase II, and xanthine oxidase inhibition) and in vivo (analgesic and sedative) activity. The prepared IONPs demonstrate effective enzyme inhibitory activity (95.49% urease, 72.23% CA-II, 86.03% XO) and dose-dependent sedative and anti-writhing effects. However, direct comparison with the crude extract on a mg/kg basis is limited by differences in phytochemical content between the two formulations. Quercetin, a flavonoid previously reported in E. camaldulensis, was used as a representative ligand for molecular docking, while a simplified iron-based cluster model was used to explore possible interactions of the nanoparticle surface with target enzymes. Thus, these results suggest that E. camaldulensis-mediated IONPs possess promising enzyme inhibitory and sedative properties, but further physicochemical, kinetic, mechanistic, toxicity, and biophysical validation studies are required.