Nanotoxicology of common metal oxide based nanomaterials: their ROS‐y and non‐ROS‐y consequences

Abstract

Inorganic nanomaterials form the bulk of the nanomaterials (NMs) found in consumer products that can easily enter into the food chain, biosystems and environment. Because of their sizes and associated material characteristics, many studies have shown a fair degree of toxicity associated with these NMs. This review consolidates and discusses the nanotoxicity of three commonly found inorganic oxide NMs, namely titanium dioxide, zinc oxide and silicon dioxide. Because oxidative stress in the form of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a major mediator of nanotoxicity, we have centered much of our discussion on mechanisms before and after ROS production due to these common NMs. These NMs do exhibit non-ROS effects, not as well characterized but still biologically important. The physiological transport of NMs and how they intersect with biological mechanisms that finally brought about cell death gave some insights of how these NMs might behave in biological systems and thus illustrate the impact of this new class of materials on human health.

Decoupling the Direct and Indirect Biological Effects of ZnO Nanoparticles Using a Communicative Dual Cell‐Type Tissue Construct

“…Thus, we investigated the induction of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) by ZnO NP. Previous study had reported that ZnO NP are able to disturb the intracellular oxidative stress balance and consequently triggered other detrimental events in the cell . Similarly, we observed an elevation of intracellular ROS in the endothelial cells after 3 h of ZnO NP treatment (Figure D) but not at the early timepoint.…”

“…Previous study had reported that ZnO NP are able to disturb the intracellular oxidative stress balance and consequently triggered other detrimental events in the cell. [ 38,39 ] Similarly, we observed an elevation of intracellular ROS in the endothelial cells after 3 h of ZnO NP treatment ( Figure 5 D) but not at the early timepoint. At the earlier timepoints (1 and 2 h after exposure to ZnO NP), signifi cant amount of ZnO NP was indeed taken up by the cell; however, the intracellular ROS level was not elevated with this increase in Zn content in the cell.…”

Toxicity profiling of water contextual zinc oxide, silver, and titanium dioxide nanoparticles in human oral and gastrointestinal cell systems

“…The incorporation of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs), which are materials with size range of 100 nm or less in at least one dimension, into consumer products is rising. For instance, zinc oxide (ZnO) and silver (Ag) NPs are used in clothing materials and food packaging due to their antibacterial properties (Dastjerdi and Montazer ; Smolander and Chaudhry ; Setyawati et al, ; Yuan et al, ). Various foods, sunscreens, cosmetics, paints, and adhesives contain titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) NPs as white color pigment (US EPA, ; Smolander and Chaudhry, ).…”

Reciprocal Response of Human Oral Epithelial Cells to Internalized Silica Nanoparticles

“…Considering that oral ingestion is the most probable route of entry where ENPs of many consumer products are concerned, we focus on oral mucosa cells as the cell model of this study. The permeability of ENPs through the oral mucosa is significantly higher than cutaneous skin because a large part of the highly vascularized mucosa is non‐keratinized.…”