Oral Toxicity and Intestinal Transport Mechanism of Colloidal Gold Nanoparticle-Treated Red Ginseng

Abstract

(1) Background: Application of nanotechnology or nanomaterials in agricultural food crops has attracted increasing attention with regard to improving crop production, quality, and nutrient utilization. Gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) have been reported to enhance seed yield, germination rate, and anti-oxidant potential in food crops, raising concerns about their toxicity potential. In this study, we evaluated the oral toxicity of red ginseng exposed to colloidal Au-NPs during cultivation (G-red ginseng) in rats and their intestinal transport mechanism. (2) Methods: 14-day repeated oral administration of G-red ginseng extract to rats was performed, and body weight, hematological, serum biochemical, and histopathological values were analyzed. An in vitro model of human intestinal follicle-associated epithelium (FAE) and an intestinal epithelial monolayer system were used for intestinal transport mechanistic study. (3) Results: No remarkable oral toxicity of G-red ginseng extract in rats was found, and Au-NPs did not accumulate in any organ, although Au-NP transfer to G-red ginseng and some increased saponin levels were confirmed. Au-NPs were transcytozed by microfold (M) cells, but not by a paracellular pathway in the intestinal epithelium. (4) Conclusion: These findings suggest great potential of Au-NPs for agricultural food crops at safe levels. Further study is required to elucidate the functional effects of Au-NPs on ginseng and long-term toxicity.

ZnO Interactions with Biomatrices: Effect of Particle Size on ZnO-Protein Corona

“…M cells found in Peyer’s patches in the small intestine are implicated in the transport of various molecules, including macromolecules and particles [ 43 , 44 ]. Indeed, the intestinal transportation of diverse NPs by M cells has been recently reported [ 45 , 46 , 47 ], which concurs with our results. It should be noted that ZnO particles can be also transported through intestinal tight junction barriers, as demonstrated by our Caco-2 monolayer model.…”

Evaluation of colloidal platinum on cytotoxicity, oxidative stress and barrier permeability across the gut epithelium

“…Transcytosis can be via endocytosis, an energy dependent process that includes clathrin-mediated endocytosis, caveolae mediated endocytosis, macropinocytosis and phagocytosis, or via energy independent non-endocytic pathways [53] . Previous studies have shown that colloidal gold nanoparticles could be transcytosed by microfold (M) cells but could not cross the Caco-2 model of intestinal epithelial barrier in a paracellular manner [54] . Lipid nanoparticles have been shown to be transported across a Caco-2 barrier within 4 h preferentially by clathrin mediated endocytosis [52] .…”

Engineered Gold-Based Nanomaterials: Morphologies and Functionalities in Biomedical Applications. A Mini Review

“…This review shows the advantages and disadvantages of the different morphologies, considering the dimension, functionalization and bioapplication. In this regard, in the wide biomedicine field, four main areas of applications are typically identified: therapy, diagnostics, drug/gene delivery, and sensors, as schematically shown in Figure 2 [4,8,10,12,16,17,18,21,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,37,38,39,48,51,53,70,71,72,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,90,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,…”