Boey Adrian, Ho Han Kiat
Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore, 18 Science Drive 4, Singapore, 117559, Singapore.
Small. 2020 May;16(21):e2000153. doi: 10.1002/smll.202000153. Epub 2020 Mar 12.
Metal nanoparticles (NPs) are frequently encountered in daily life, and concerns have been raised about their toxicity and safety. Among which, they naturally accumulate in the liver after introduction into the body, independent of the route of administration. Some NPs exhibit intrinsic pharmaceutical effects that are related to their physical parameters, and their inadvertent accumulation in the liver can exert strong effects on liver function and structure. Even as such physiological consequences are often categorically dismissed as toxic and deleterious, there are cell type-specific and NP-specific biological responses that elicit distinctive pharmacological consequences that can be harnessed for good. By limiting the scope of discussion to metallic NPs, this work attempts to provide a balanced perspective on their safety in the liver, and discusses both possible therapeutic benefits and potential accidental liver damage arising from their interaction with specific parenchymal and nonparenchymal cell types in the liver.
金属纳米颗粒（NPs）在日常生活中经常遇到，人们对其毒性和安全性表示担忧。其中，它们进入人体后会自然地在肝脏中积累，与给药途径无关。一些纳米颗粒具有与其物理参数相关的内在药物作用，它们在肝脏中的意外积累会对肝功能和结构产生强烈影响。即使这些生理后果通常被一概而论地视为有毒和有害，但存在细胞类型特异性和纳米颗粒特异性的生物学反应，会引发独特的药理学后果，可加以善用。通过将讨论范围限制在金属纳米颗粒上，这项工作试图对它们在肝脏中的安全性提供一个平衡的观点，并讨论它们与肝脏中特定实质细胞和非实质细胞类型相互作用可能带来的治疗益处和潜在的意外肝损伤。
