Toxic Effects of Low-Level Long-Term Inhalation Exposures of Rats to Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles.

Minigalieva Minigalieva,Sutunkova Sutunkova,Korotkov Korotkov,Valamina Valamina,Makeyev Makeyev,Shur Shur,Shuman Shuman,Zubarev Zubarev,Klinova Klinova,Tsaregorodtseva Tsaregorodtseva,Katsnelson Katsnelson,Shishkina Shishkina,Gurvich Gurvich,Privalova Privalova,Saatkhudinova Saatkhudinova,Solovyeva Solovyeva

doi:10.3390/ijms20071778

Abstract

Rats were exposed to nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiO-NP) inhalation at 0.23 ± 0.01 mg/m3 for 4 h a day 5 times a week for up to 10 months. The rat organism responded to this impact with changes in cytological and some biochemical characteristics of the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid along with a paradoxically little pronounced pulmonary pathology associated with a rather low chronic retention of nanoparticles in the lungs. There were various manifestations of systemic toxicity, including damage to the liver and kidneys; a likely allergic syndrome as indicated by some cytological signs; transient stimulation of erythropoiesis; and penetration of nickel into the brain from the nasal mucous membrane along the olfactory pathway. Against a picture of mild to moderate chronic toxicity of nickel, its in vivo genotoxic effect assessed by the degree of DNA fragmentation in nucleated blood cells (the RAPD test) was pronounced, tending to increasing with the length of the exposure period. When rats were given orally, in parallel with the toxic exposure, a set of innocuous substances with differing mechanisms of expected bioprotective action, the genotoxic effect of NiO-NPs was found to be substantially attenuated.

Highlights

Like many other metal-oxide nanoparticles species that we toxicologically characterized in experiments during 2009–2017 and reported in research papers and overviews [1,2], nickel-oxide nanoparticles (NiO-NPs) are of special interest for industrial toxicology and occupational health risk assessment and management
As was emphasized in the introduction, the experimental data on the inhalation toxicity of NiO-NPs reported so far have been obtained [18,19,20,21] for exposures that were not long-term and in this respect not comparable, even for the short lifespan of rats, with possible occupational exposure durations that are of primary interest in the area of preventive industrial toxicology
We studied NiO-NPs accumulated on the microporous PSI filter (Performance Systematix, Inc.—Grand Rapids, MI, USA) from the air exhausted from the exposure tower for testing particle dissolution in water, in normal saline, in cell-free bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) supernatant, or in sterile bovine blood serum

Summary

Introduction

Like many other metal-oxide nanoparticles species that we toxicologically characterized in experiments during 2009–2017 and reported in research papers and overviews [1,2], nickel-oxide nanoparticles (NiO-NPs) are of special interest for industrial toxicology and occupational health risk assessment and management. Are engineered NiO-NPs produced for various industrial applications (such as photoelectric and recording materials, catalysts, sensors, and ceramics), but they make up a substantial proportion in the particle size distribution of condensation aerosols generated by traditional metallurgical and arc-welding technologies. It is no wonder that NiO-NP toxicology has been, and still is, the subject-matter of numerous experimental studies. We have not come across any studies that would examine the chronic toxicity of NiO-NPs by a reasonably large number of informative indicators using a long-term inhalation exposure. In the studies we know of, such exposure lasted no longer than 4 weeks [18,19,20,21]

Methods

Results

Conclusion