Additives for reducing the toxicity of respirable crystalline silica. SILIFE project

Monfort, E.; López-Lilao, Ana; Escrig, A.; Ibáñez, María Azucena Penas; Bonvicini, Giuliana; Creutzenberg, Otto; Ziemann, Christina

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/20171902030

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…Two EU projects have developed and implemented, at an industrial scale, cost-effective coating technologies, based on stable, covalent masking of surface silanol groups to inhibit CS toxicity [59, 64]. Both wet [16, 66] and dry coating methods [30] have recently been reported. In contrast to known approaches to dampen toxicity with substances such as Al lactate, which act by ionic interaction with silanol groups, these surface-coating technologies are based on stable, covalent bonds between the coating agent (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The puzzling issue of silica toxicity: are silanols bridging the gaps between surface states and pathogenicity?

Pavan¹,

Piane

Gullo

et al. 2019

Part Fibre Toxicol

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Background Silica continues to represent an intriguing topic of fundamental and applied research across various scientific fields, from geology to physics, chemistry, cell biology, and particle toxicology. The pathogenic activity of silica is variable, depending on the physico-chemical features of the particles. In the last 50 years, crystallinity and capacity to generate free radicals have been recognized as relevant features for silica toxicity. The ‘surface’ also plays an important role in silica toxicity, but this term has often been used in a very general way, without defining which properties of the surface are actually driving toxicity. How the chemical features (e.g., silanols and siloxanes) and configuration of the silica surface can trigger toxic responses remains incompletely understood. Main body Recent developments in surface chemistry, cell biology and toxicology provide new avenues to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of the adverse responses to silica particles. New physico-chemical methods can finely characterize and quantify silanols at the surface of silica particles. Advanced computational modelling and atomic force microscopy offer unique opportunities to explore the intimate interactions between silica surface and membrane models or cells. In recent years, interdisciplinary research, using these tools, has built increasing evidence that surface silanols are critical determinants of the interaction between silica particles and biomolecules, membranes, cell systems, or animal models. It also has become clear that silanol configuration, and eventually biological responses, can be affected by impurities within the crystal structure, or coatings covering the particle surface. The discovery of new molecular targets of crystalline as well as amorphous silica particles in the immune system and in epithelial lung cells represents new possible toxicity pathways. Cellular recognition systems that detect specific features of the surface of silica particles have been identified. Conclusions Interdisciplinary research bridging surface chemistry to toxicology is progressively solving the puzzling issue of the variable toxicity of silica. Further interdisciplinary research is ongoing to elucidate the intimate mechanisms of silica pathogenicity, to possibly mitigate or reduce surface reactivity.

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