State Key Laboratory of Virology & Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, PR China.
State Key Laboratory of Virology & Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, PR China; College of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, PR China.
Chemosphere. 2017 Oct;184:1108-1116. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.06.091. Epub 2017 Jun 21.
The potential toxicity of Quantum dots (QDs) should be assessed comprehensively for their fast spreading applications. Many studies have shown the toxicity of QDs is associated with their surface ligands. In this work, two analog ligands with one carbon difference, 2-mercaptoacetic acid (TGA) and 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) were used as coating materials in the syntheses of two types of CdTe QDs with similar physicochemical properties. Then the biological effects of QDs on isolated mitochondria were studied. It was found that the two types of QDs could impair mitochondrial respiration and induce mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT). However, as compared with TGA-CdTe QDs, MPA-CdTe QDs had a stronger effect on MPT. The weaker effect of TGA-CdTe QDs on MPT might be owing to their better stability and thus less amount of released Cd, which could be further explained by the stronger affinity between the ligand (TGA) and the cadmium complexes in the crystal growth of QDs. These results highlighted the importance of ligands responsible for the toxicity of QDs at the sub-cellular level.
量子点（QDs）的潜在毒性因其广泛的应用而应得到全面评估。许多研究表明，QDs 的毒性与其表面配体有关。在这项工作中，两种类似的配体，即巯基乙酸（TGA）和 3-巯基丙酸（MPA），作为两种具有相似物理化学性质的 CdTe QDs 的合成中的涂层材料。然后研究了 QDs 对分离线粒体的生物效应。结果发现，这两种类型的 QDs 都可以损害线粒体呼吸并诱导线粒体通透性转换（MPT）。然而，与 TGA-CdTe QDs 相比，MPA-CdTe QDs 对 MPT 的影响更强。TGA-CdTe QDs 对 MPT 的影响较弱可能是由于其更好的稳定性，从而释放出较少的 Cd，这可以通过配体（TGA）与 QDs 晶体生长中镉配合物之间更强的亲和力来进一步解释。这些结果强调了在亚细胞水平上负责 QDs 毒性的配体的重要性。
