Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territory, Hong Kong.
Pharmacy and Bank Building A15, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 4;7(1):7315. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-07588-9.
We investigated the influence of nanoparticles' shape on the physiological responses of cells, when they were fed with spherical and needle-shaped PLGA-PEG nanoparticles (the volume of the nanoparticles had been chosen as the fixed parameter). We found that both types of NPs entered cells via endocytosis and upon internalization they stayed in membrane bounded vesicles. Needle-shaped, but not the spherical-shaped NPs were found to induce significant cytotoxicity in the cell lines tested. Our study evidenced that the cytotoxicity of needle-shaped NPs was induced through the lysosome disruption. Lysosome damage activated the signaling pathways for cell apoptosis, and eventually caused DNA fragmentation and cell death. The present work showed that physiological response of the cells can be very different when the shape of the fed nanoparticles changed from spherical to needle-like. The finding suggests that the toxicity of nanomaterials also depends on their shape.
我们研究了当细胞摄入球形和针状 PLGA-PEG 纳米颗粒（选择纳米颗粒的体积作为固定参数）时，纳米颗粒形状对细胞生理反应的影响。我们发现，这两种类型的纳米颗粒都通过内吞作用进入细胞，在被内化后，它们留在膜结合的囊泡中。研究发现，针状纳米颗粒而非球形纳米颗粒会导致所测试的细胞系产生明显的细胞毒性。我们的研究表明，针状纳米颗粒的细胞毒性是通过溶酶体破坏诱导的。溶酶体损伤激活了细胞凋亡的信号通路，最终导致 DNA 片段化和细胞死亡。本研究表明，当摄入的纳米颗粒的形状从球形变为针状时，细胞的生理反应可能会非常不同。这一发现表明，纳米材料的毒性也取决于其形状。
