Toxicity and Transcriptome Sequencing (RNA-seq) Analyses of Adult Zebrafish in Response to Exposure Carboxymethyl Cellulose Stabilized Iron Sulfide Nanoparticles

Abstract

Increasing utilization of stabilized iron sulfides (FeS) nanoparticles implies an elevated release of the materials into the environment. To understand potential impacts and underlying mechanisms of nanoparticle-induced stress, we used the transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) technique to characterize the transcriptomes from adult zebrafish exposed to 10 mg/L carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) stabilized FeS nanoparticles for 96 h, demonstrating striking differences in the gene expression profiles in liver. The exposure caused significant expression alterations in genes related to immune and inflammatory responses, detoxification, oxidative stress and DNA damage/repair. The complement and coagulation cascades Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway was found significantly up-regulated under nanoparticle exposure. The quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction using twelve genes confirmed the RNA-seq results. We identified several candidate genes commonly regulated in liver, which may serve as gene indicators when exposed to the nanoparticles. Hepatic inflammation was further confirmed by histological observation of pyknotic nuclei, and vacuole formation upon exposure. Tissue accumulation tests showed a 2.2 times higher iron concentration in the fish tissue upon exposure. This study provides preliminary mechanistic insights into potential toxic effects of organic matter stabilized FeS nanoparticles, which will improve our understanding of the genotoxicity caused by stabilized nanoparticles.

Subtoxic dose of lithium cobalt oxide nanosheets impacts critical molecular pathways in trout gill epithelial cells

“…15 Exposure of adult zebrafish to a low dose of carboxymethyl cellulose stabilized FeS NPs resulted in changes in the expression level of genes related to oxidative stress, DNA damage/repair, inflammatory responses, and detoxification. 18 Taken together these studies demonstrate that both the nanoparticle properties and concentration play a role in impacting molecular processes in cells and organisms.…”

“…Whole transcriptome analysis using RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) is an effective approach to uncover changes in gene expression and molecular processes that might be impacted by NP exposures, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] including exposures to low or subtoxic NP concentrations. [14][15][16] Recent work found human lung cells exposed to a non-cytotoxic dose of TiO 2 NPs for 24 h resulted in over 2000 differentially expressed genes as compared to unexposed cells.…”

Silver nanoparticles modulate lipopolysaccharide-triggered Toll-like receptor signaling in immune-competent human cell lines

“…27 Indeed, we and others have applied socalled next-generation sequencing to investigate mechanisms of nanoparticle-induced toxicity in cells and in intact organisms. [28][29][30] For instance, using RNA-seq, we could show that cerium oxide nanoparticles inhibited differentiation of neural stem cells. 31 In addition, we have applied RNA-seq to explore the effects of long-term exposure to Ag nanoparticles (1 mg mL À1 ) in BEAS-2B cells.…”

Shedding new light on early sex determination in zebrafish

“…Stress often causes a male-biased sex ratio in fish; pdia4, the protein product of an ER chaperones, is down-regulated, five-fold, due to ER function decrease under stress conditions (Zheng et al 2018). Pdia is expressed most highly in the female gonad [bgee.org-gene: pdia4-ENSDARG00000018491-Danio rerio (zebrafish)] and at 30-44 dpf in the ovaries of zebrafish (Miao et al 2017).…”