Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, 411 Durham Hall (0246), Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Biomed Res Int. 2013;2013:328934. doi: 10.1155/2013/328934. Epub 2012 Dec 24.
Silver nanoparticles are one of the most prevalent nanomaterials in consumer products. Some of these products are likely to be aerosolized, making silver nanoparticles a high priority for inhalation toxicity assessment. To study the inhalation toxicity of silver nanoparticles, we have exposed cultured lung cells to them at the air-liquid interface. Cells were exposed to suspensions of silver or nickel oxide (positive control) nanoparticles at concentrations of 2.6, 6.6, and 13.2 μ g cm(-2) (volume concentrations of 10, 25, and 50 μ g ml(-1)) and to 0.7 μ g cm(-2) silver or 2.1 μ g cm(-2) nickel oxide aerosol at the air-liquid interface. Unlike a number of in vitro studies employing suspensions of silver nanoparticles, which have shown strong toxic effects, both suspensions and aerosolized nanoparticles caused negligible cytotoxicity and only a mild inflammatory response, in agreement with animal exposures. Additionally, we have developed a novel method using a differential mobility analyzer to select aerosolized nanoparticles of a single diameter to assess the size-dependent toxicity of silver nanoparticles.
银纳米颗粒是消费品中最常见的纳米材料之一。这些产品中的一些可能会被气溶胶化，这使得银纳米颗粒成为吸入毒性评估的首要任务。为了研究银纳米颗粒的吸入毒性，我们已经将培养的肺细胞暴露于空气中的银纳米颗粒或镍氧化物（阳性对照）纳米颗粒悬浮液中，浓度分别为 2.6、6.6 和 13.2μg/cm²（体积浓度为 10、25 和 50μg/ml），以及在气液界面处暴露于 0.7μg/cm² 的银或 2.1μg/cm² 的镍氧化物气溶胶。与许多采用银纳米颗粒悬浮液的体外研究不同，这些研究显示出强烈的毒性作用，悬浮液和雾化纳米颗粒都引起了轻微的细胞毒性和炎症反应，这与动物暴露一致。此外，我们还开发了一种使用差分迁移分析仪选择单一直径的雾化纳米颗粒的新方法，以评估银纳米颗粒的尺寸依赖性毒性。
