Ahluwalia Kanwaljit Kaur, Thakur Kritika, Ahluwalia Amrik Singh, Hashem Abeer, Avila-Quezada Graciela Dolores, Abd Allah Elsayed Fathi, Thakur Neelam
Department of Zoology, Akal College of Basic Sciences, Eternal University, Baru Sahib, Himachal Pradesh 173101, India.
Department of Botany, Akal College of Basic Sciences, Eternal University, Baru Sahib, Himachal Pradesh 173101, India.
Toxics. 2023 Oct 29;11(11):887. doi: 10.3390/toxics11110887.
The widespread applications of ZnO NPs in the different areas of science, technology, medicine, agriculture, and commercial products have led to increased chances of their release into the environment. This created a growing public concern about the toxicological and environmental effects of the nanoparticles. The impact of these NPs on the genetic materials of living organisms is documented in some cultured cells and plants, but there are only a few studies regarding this aspect in animals. In view of this, the present work regarding the assessment of the genotoxicity of zinc oxide nanoparticles using the mosquito has been taken up. Statistically significant chromosomal aberrations over the control are recorded after the exposure of the fourth instar larvae to a dose of less than LD for 24 h. In order to select this dose, LD of ZnO NPs for the mosquito is determined by Probit analysis. Lacto-aceto-orcein stained chromosomal preparations are made from gonads of adult treated and control mosquitoes. Both structural aberrations, such as chromosomal breaks, fragments, translocations, and terminal fusions, resulting in the formation of rings and clumped chromosomes, and numerical ones, including hypo- and hyper-aneuploidy at metaphases, bridges, and laggards at the anaphase stage are observed. The percentage frequency of abnormalities in the shape of sperm heads is also found to be statistically significant over the controls. Besides this, zinc oxide nanoparticles are also found to affect the reproductive potential and embryo development as egg rafts obtained from the genetic crosses of ZnO nanoparticle-treated virgin females and normal males are small in size with a far smaller number of eggs per raft. The percentage frequencies of dominant lethal mutations indicated by the frequency of unhatched eggs are also statistically significant ( < 0.05) over the control. The induction of abnormalities in all of the three short-term assays studied during the present piece of work indicates the genotoxic potential of ZnO NPs, which cannot be labeled absolutely safe, and this study pinpoints the need to develop strategies for the protection of the environment and living organisms thriving in it.
氧化锌纳米颗粒在科学、技术、医学、农业和商业产品等不同领域的广泛应用，增加了其释放到环境中的可能性。这引发了公众对纳米颗粒毒理学和环境影响的日益关注。这些纳米颗粒对活生物体遗传物质的影响在一些培养细胞和植物中有记载，但在动物方面关于这方面的研究较少。有鉴于此，开展了本项关于使用蚊子评估氧化锌纳米颗粒遗传毒性的工作。在四龄幼虫暴露于低于半数致死剂量24小时后，记录到与对照组相比具有统计学显著差异的染色体畸变。为了选择该剂量，通过概率分析确定了氧化锌纳米颗粒对蚊子的半数致死剂量。用乳酸 - 醋酸地衣红对成年处理组和对照组蚊子的性腺进行染色体制片。观察到了结构畸变，如染色体断裂、片段、易位和末端融合，导致形成环状和聚集染色体，以及数量畸变，包括中期的亚二倍体和超二倍体、后期的桥和落后染色体。还发现精子头部形状异常的百分比频率与对照组相比具有统计学显著性。除此之外，还发现氧化锌纳米颗粒会影响生殖潜力和胚胎发育，因为从经氧化锌纳米颗粒处理的处女雌蚊与正常雄蚊的遗传杂交中获得的卵块尺寸较小，每个卵块中的卵数量少得多。未孵化卵的频率所表明的显性致死突变百分比频率与对照组相比也具有统计学显著性（<0.05）。在本项工作中所研究的所有三种短期试验中均诱导出异常，这表明氧化锌纳米颗粒具有遗传毒性潜力，不能被绝对标记为安全，并且本研究指出需要制定保护环境和其中生物的策略。
