Post-graduation Program in Cerrado Natural Resource Conservation and Biological Research Laboratory, Instituto Federal Goiano-Urutaí Campus, Urutai, GO, Brazil.
Post-graduation Program in Biotechnology and Biodiversity, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiania, GO, Brazil.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Apr;26(11):10641-10650. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-04536-0. Epub 2019 Feb 15.
The advent of biotechnology provided the synthesis of nanoproducts with diverse applications in the field of medicine, agriculture, food, among others. However, the toxicity of many nanoparticles (NP) currently used, which can penetrate natural systems and impact organisms, is not known. Thus, in this study, we evaluated whether the short exposure (5 days) to low concentrations of chitosan-coated zein nanoparticles (ZNP-CS) (0.2 ng/kg, 40 ng/kg, and 400.00 ng/kg) was capable of causing behavioral alterations compatible with cognitive deficit, as well as anxiety and depression-like behavior in Swiss mice. However, we observed an anxiogenic effect in the animals exposed to the highest ZNP-CS concentration (400.00 ng/kg), without locomotor alterations suggestive of sedation or hyperactivity in the elevated plus maze (EPM) test. We also observed that the ZNP-CS caused depressive-like behavior, indicated by the longer immobile time in the tail suspension test and the animals exposed to ZNP-CS presented deficit in recognition of the new object, not related to locomotor alteration in this test. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the neurotoxicity of ZNP in a mammal animal model, contributing to the biological safety assessment of these nanocomposites.
生物技术的出现为纳米产品的合成提供了多种应用，包括医学、农业、食品等领域。然而，许多目前使用的纳米颗粒（NP）的毒性尚不清楚，这些 NP 可以穿透自然系统并对生物体产生影响。因此，在这项研究中，我们评估了短期（5 天）暴露于低浓度壳聚糖包裹的玉米醇溶蛋白纳米颗粒（ZNP-CS）（0.2ng/kg、40ng/kg 和 400.00ng/kg）是否会导致类似于认知缺陷的行为改变，以及焦虑和抑郁样行为在瑞士小鼠中。然而，我们观察到暴露于最高 ZNP-CS 浓度（400.00ng/kg）的动物表现出焦虑作用，而在高架十字迷宫（EPM）测试中没有运动改变提示镇静或过度活跃。我们还观察到 ZNP-CS 引起了抑郁样行为，这表现为在悬尾试验中动物的不动时间更长，并且暴露于 ZNP-CS 的动物在新物体识别测试中表现出缺陷，与该测试中的运动改变无关。据我们所知，这是 ZNP 在哺乳动物动物模型中神经毒性的首次报道，有助于对这些纳米复合材料进行生物安全评估。
