Photoinduced Suppression of Alzheimer’s Aβ42 Amyloidogenesis by Highly Hydrophobic and Photoactive ZnO/AAO Composite Membranes

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by symptoms of memory loss and cognitive impairment and caused by amyloidogenesis of amyloid beta 42 (Aβ42). Photosensitized hydrophobic nanomaterials can retard the such amyloidogenic aggregation via reactive oxygen species (ROS) and surface interactions. Here, we report a novel type of highly hydrophobic and photoactive ZnO/AAO membranes for efficient prevention of Aβ42 amyloidogenesis. The membranes were fabricated using the facile hydrothermal and mild anodization approaches. The resulting membranes were characterized and found highly hydrophobic with a contact angle ~120^o. The inhibitory activity of the membranes in vitro was investigated as a function of incubation time (0-120 h) under visible light illumination and probed by tunneling electron microscope (TEM), dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS), circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD), UV-visible spectroscopy and thioflavin-T (ThT) fluorescence assay. The fabricated ZnO/AAO membranes showed a great deal of suppression of Aβ42 amyloidogenesis after 120 h of incubation. Our results support a novel biological application of fabricated ZnO/AAO porous membranes and provide new insights into design of new multifunctional nanomaterials for treatment of AD.