Multigenerational Study of Gold Nanoparticles inCaenorhabditis elegans: Transgenerational Effect of Maternal Exposure

Abstract

In this study, the generational transfer and multigenerational effect of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on Caenorhabditis elegans were investigated by observing the parental generation (F0) to the fourth offspring generation (F4) using food-exposure approaches. There were no significant changes on survival rate under all generations by AuNP maternal exposure to the F0 generation. However, reproduction rate was clearly affected in the F2 generation but then gradually recovered in the F3 and F4 generations. The abnormalities of the reproductive system showed a close relationship with reproduction rates. These phenomenons may be due to the germ-line transfer. The germ line of F0 generation such as gonad and embryo germ cell may be affected during their development by maternal exposure of AuNPs, and this generation caused transgeneration effect on future generations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to provide the evidence of transgenerational effects by maternal exposure of nanoparticles to the next generations.

Multigenerational exposure to silver ions and silver nanoparticles reveals heightened sensitivity and epigenetic memory inCaenorhabditis elegans

“…Changes in sensitivity in multigenerational exposed populations changed the expected effect of the continuous exposure concentration from an EC 35 to EC 63 -EC 66 for AgNO 3 and an EC 25 to an EC 55 -EC 73 for Ag-PVP-exposed F2 -F8 generations (electronic supplementary material, table S3). A slight reduction in F10 sensitivity reduced this effect severity for the multigenerational exposure to an EC 19 and EC 13 for AgNO 3 and Ag-PVP, respectively. This resulted from changes in the shape of the response curves with EC 50 levels remaining lower than the P generation.…”

Insights into the Ecotoxicity of Silver Nanoparticles Transferred from Escherichia coli to Caenorhabditis elegans

“…Importantly, it has been widely employed as a test model in toxicology studies from the whole-animal level down to the single-cell level1019. Moreover, C. elegans has a translucent body that can be exploited to observe the distribution of AgNPs in the organ system.…”

Sucrose density gradient centrifugation for efficient separation of engineered nanoparticles from a model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans

“…C. elegans has been extensively employed in ENP-related uptake and nanotoxicity studies to investigate the potential deleterious effects of ENP-exposure on organism health and behavior. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] For nano-exposure research involving C. elegans, conventional rinsing procedures are typically composed of multiple water or media rinses followed by centrifugation and vacuum filtration of the supernatant. [6-8, 10, 11, 15, 16] When our research group tested and employed a similar rinsing strategy, we found that water rinsing was unsuitable for the efficient removal of non-ingested NPs, even at low, environmentally relevant exposure concentrations (ng mL -1 or part per billion in gold mass fraction).…”