Abstract
There is a growing concern for the potential toxicity of engineered nanomaterials that have made their way into virtually all novel applications in the electronics, healthcare, cosmetics, technology, and engineering industries, and in particular, biomedical products. However, the potential toxicity of carbon 60 (C60) at the behavioral level has not been properly evaluated. In this study, we used idTracker, a multitracking algorithm to quantitatively assess behavioral toxicity induced by C60 nanoparticles (C60 NPs) in adult zebrafish. We demonstrated that locomotion, novel tank exploration, aggression, shoaling, and color preference activities of the C60 NPs-treated fish was significantly reduced. In addition, the C60 NPs-treated fish also displayed dysregulation of the circadian rhythm by showing lower locomotion activities in both day and night cycles. The biochemical results showed that C60 NPs exposure at low concentration induced oxidative stress and DNA damage, reduced anti-oxidative capacity and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) levels, and induced stress-associated hormones, hypoxia, as well as inflammation marker upregulation in muscle and gill tissues. Together, this work, for the first time, provide direct evidence showing that the chronic exposure of C60 NPs induced multiple behavioral abnormalities in adult zebrafish. Our findings suggest that the ecotoxicity of C60 NPs towards aquatic vertebrates should be carefully evaluated.
Highlights
Nanoparticles (NPs) hold a promising future in biomedical applications such as biosensors, target drug/gene delivery, cancer therapy, bio-imaging, and antimicrobial approaches owing to its unique physical, chemical, and mechanical properties besides minimal toxicity to normal cells and photo stability [1,2]
We reported three highlights for carbon 60 (C60) NPs toxicity in adult zebrafish for the first time: (1) Ours is the first study to report the C60 nanoparticles (C60 NPs) induced changes in behavioral paradigms and less locomotor co-ordination session in low concentrations of C60 NPs exposed in zebrafish; (2) We demonstrated that sub-chronic exposure of sub-lethal concentrations of C60 NPs caused reduced aggression and anxiolytic character in C60 NPs exposed zebrafish; (3) we showed that adult zebrafish sub-chronically exposed to 1and 2-ppm C60 NPs had a significant increase in oxidative stress biomarkers such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and a depletion in catalase activity in gill and muscle
The present study provided direct evidence showing that the chronic exposure of C60 NPs induced multiple behavioral abnormalities in adult zebrafish
Summary
Nanoparticles (NPs) hold a promising future in biomedical applications such as biosensors, target drug/gene delivery, cancer therapy, bio-imaging, and antimicrobial approaches owing to its unique physical, chemical, and mechanical properties besides minimal toxicity to normal cells and photo stability [1,2]. Carbon 60 nanoparticles (C60 NPs) have been used in many commercial processes and industrial products such as IT (intelligent technology) devices and diagnostics, as well as in environmental, pharmaceutical, superconductor, and energy industries [5,6]. Some research results showed that C60 itself is biologically inert and can absorb free radicals playing a role as an anti-oxidative reagent in vitro and in vivo [10,11,12]. Data regarding the impact of C60 NPs on the natural environment and human health is very limited
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