Abstract
Fe2O3, CuO and ZnO nanoparticles (NP) have found various industrial and biomedical applications. However, there are growing concerns among the general public and regulators about their potential environmental and health impacts as their physio-chemical interaction with biological systems and toxic responses of the latter are complex and not well understood. Herein we first reported that human SH-SY5Y and H4 cells and rat PC12 cell lines displayed concentration-dependent neurotoxic responses to insults of CuO nanoparticles (CuONP), but not to Fe2O3 nanoparticles (Fe2O3NP) or ZnO nanoparticles (ZnONP). This study provides evidence that CuONP induces neuronal cell apoptosis, discerns a likely p53-dependent apoptosis pathway and builds out the relationship between nanoparticles and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) through the involvement of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and increased Aβ levels in SH-SY5Y and H4 cells. Our results implicate that exposure to CuONP may be an environmental risk factor for AD. For public health concerns, regulation for environmental or occupational exposure of CuONP are thus warranted given AD has already become a pandemic.
Highlights
Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing field which involves the creation and/or manipulation of materials at the nanometer scale and is arising as a consequence of the novel properties these materials have to offer
SH-SY5Y, H4 and pheochromocytoma-12 cells (PC12) cells exposed to CuO nanoparticles (CuONP) experienced significant increases in apoptotic events and significant decreases in cell proliferation, with H4 and PC12 experiencing the most profound effects
This is corroborated by corresponding increases in caspase 3 activity in all three cell lines, with H4 and PC12 cells again experiencing the most dramatic changes
Summary
Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing field which involves the creation and/or manipulation of materials at the nanometer (nm) scale and is arising as a consequence of the novel properties these materials have to offer. Developed nanoparticle-based products have been introduced or are being currently developed in a number of diverse areas, including electronics, food, clothing, medicines, cosmetics and sporting equipment [2]. The applications include drug-delivery platforms [3,4], enhanced image contrast agents [5,6], chip-based nanolabs capable of monitoring [5] and manipulating individual cells [7], and probes that track the movements of cells [8] and individual molecules [9] as they move about in their environment. Metal oxides, such as CuO, ZnO and Fe2 O3 play a very important role in many areas of chemistry, physics, materials science and even biomedical fields
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