Acute and Sub-acute Toxicity of Ganoderma applanatum (Pres.) Pat. Extract Mediated Silver Nanoparticles on Rat

Abstract

Ganoderm applanatum is a polypore macrofungus and traditionally used as medicine rather than fodder. Silver nanoparticles mediated by G. applanatum extract were synthesized, characterized and toxicity impacts were investigated for their pharmacological and medicinal uses. The synthesized silver nanoparticles were of average 58.78 nm in diameter with -13.8 mV zetpotential, analysed by dynamic light scattering method. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis of synthesized nanoparticles confirmed the capping and stabilizing with mycochemicals, that showed transmittance at 3606 cm-1 corresponds to O-H stretch for phenol, 2430 cm-1 corresponds to N-H stretch for primary and secondary amines. 2000 mg kg-1, 200 mg kg-1 and 400 mg kg-1 doses of silver nanoparticles showed insignificant (p<0.05) increase in body weight and organ weight. Insignificant increase in RBC indices were observed and significant (p<0.05) increase in WBC count (7.28±0.41 x 103 pL-1 and 8.41±0.35 x 103 pL-1) at 200 mg kg-1 and 400 mg kg-1 doses of silver nanoparticles were observed. Thus, G. applanatum extract mediated silver nanoparticles can be used pharmacologically and medicinally due to their nontoxic effect.