Abstract
Cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles having size range of 160 nm were prepared by using simple and effective sol-gel process and evaluated for their ulcer protective activity in an animal model. CeO2 nanoparticles at a dose of 1mg/kg found to protect gastrointestinal mucosal from ethanol induced gastric ulcers. The ability of these nanoparticles to protect ethanol induced ulcers could be supported by increased amount of biomarkers in the native tissue like superoxide dismutase (SOD) (from 85.18 ± 0.24 to 103.18 ± 0.42) and Catalase (from 66.48 ± 0.71 to 85.88 ± 0.61) in Group 2 and Group 4. The percentage of ulcer inhibition of CeO2 nanoparticles is 80.2% which is also close to the standard drug ranitidine (87.9%). The prepared nanoparticles were characterized by SEM and XRD. The probable mechanism may be due to the dual oxidation state of CeO2 which will help in scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reduce oxidative stress locally and also mimicking the intrinsic intracellular enzymes like SOD. All these results and properties could be useful in protecting the gastrointestinal mucosa from oxidative stress generated by ethanol.
