Medicinal Biochemistry, Nanomedicine & Toxicology Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, Landmark University, PMB 10017 Omu-Aran, Nigeria.
School of Medicine, All Saints University, Hillsborough Street, Roseau, Dominica.
Toxicol In Vitro. 2019 Feb;54:280-285. doi: 10.1016/j.tiv.2018.10.011. Epub 2018 Oct 22.
The interaction of nanoparticles with living cells is becoming one of the urgent areas of collaborative research in materials science and biology. Previously, we showed that nanoparticles have promising anti-Toxoplasma gondii properties. Meanwhile, Toxoplasma gondii has been shown to avert apoptosis in host cells whereas nanoparticles have been implicated for apoptotic tendency. Therefore, in the present study, we assessed the in vitro apoptotic properties of inorganic nanoparticles in the absence or presence of Toxoplasma infection and/or small molecules used as metabolic modulators. Results showed that inorganic nanoparticles dose-dependently caused cellular apoptosis. However, in the presence of infection by Toxoplasma gondii, nanoparticles-induced cellular apoptosis was not mitigated. Likewise, use of several small molecules (anti-metabolites) as metabolic modulators either mildly or nearly failed to abate cellular apoptosis by nanoparticles. Taken together, our findings do not only confirm the apoptotic potential of inorganic nanoparticles but show evidence that cellular apoptosis by inorganic nanoparticles of gold and silver might not be susceptible to modulation by Toxoplasma gondii infection. The findings are new and contribute to deepen our understanding of the cellular interaction of nanoparticles.
纳米粒子与活细胞的相互作用正成为材料科学和生物学中合作研究的热点领域之一。此前，我们已经证明纳米粒子具有很有前途的抗弓形虫特性。然而，弓形虫已被证明能够逃避宿主细胞凋亡，而纳米粒子则被认为具有凋亡倾向。因此，在本研究中，我们评估了在没有或存在弓形虫感染和/或用作代谢调节剂的小分子的情况下，无机纳米粒子的体外凋亡特性。结果表明，无机纳米粒子呈剂量依赖性地引起细胞凋亡。然而，在弓形虫感染存在的情况下，纳米粒子诱导的细胞凋亡并没有减轻。同样，使用几种小分子（抗代谢物）作为代谢调节剂，也只能轻微或几乎不能减轻纳米粒子引起的细胞凋亡。总之，我们的研究结果不仅证实了无机纳米粒子的凋亡潜力，而且还表明，金和银的无机纳米粒子引起的细胞凋亡可能不受弓形虫感染的调节。这些发现是新的，有助于加深我们对纳米粒子细胞相互作用的理解。
