Poulsen Karsten M, Albright Michaela C, Niemuth Nicholas J, Tighe Robert M, Payne Christine K
Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA 27705.
Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA 27710.
Environ Sci Nano. 2023 Sep 1;10(9):2427-2436. doi: 10.1039/d3en00179b. Epub 2023 Jul 27.
Inhalation is a major exposure route to nanoparticles. Following inhalation, nanoparticles first interact with the lung lining fluid, a complex mixture of proteins, lipids, and mucins. We measure the concentration and composition of lung fluid proteins adsorbed on the surface of titanium dioxide (TiO) nanoparticles. Using proteomics, we find that lung fluid results in a unique protein corona on the surface of the TiO nanoparticles. We then measure the expression of three cytokines (interleukin 6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and macrophage inflammatory protein 2 (MIP-2)) associated with lung inflammation. We find that the corona formed from lung fluid leads to elevated expression of these cytokines in comparison to bare TiO nanoparticles or coronas formed from serum or albumin. These experiments show that understanding the concentration and composition of the protein corona is essential for understanding the pulmonary response associated with human exposure to nanoparticles.
吸入是纳米颗粒的主要暴露途径。吸入后，纳米颗粒首先与肺内膜液相互作用，肺内膜液是蛋白质、脂质和粘蛋白的复杂混合物。我们测量吸附在二氧化钛（TiO）纳米颗粒表面的肺液蛋白质的浓度和组成。利用蛋白质组学，我们发现肺液会在TiO纳米颗粒表面形成独特的蛋白质冠层。然后我们测量与肺部炎症相关的三种细胞因子（白细胞介素6（IL-6）、肿瘤坏死因子-α（TNF-α）和巨噬细胞炎性蛋白2（MIP-2））的表达。我们发现，与裸露的TiO纳米颗粒或由血清或白蛋白形成的蛋白质冠层相比，由肺液形成的蛋白质冠层会导致这些细胞因子的表达升高。这些实验表明，了解蛋白质冠层的浓度和组成对于理解与人类接触纳米颗粒相关的肺部反应至关重要。
