The CdSe nanoparticles surface corona proteins cause immunotoxicity affecting to nematode

Abstract

Abstract The selenium and cadmium from waste streams were uptake by microorganism. Those engineered nanoparticles (BioQs), which coated by corona proteins in microorganism or released. However, there is a lack of multilevel toxicity validation and immunotoxicity evaluation on corona proteins in vivo. In this study, the toxicity evaluating and immune-toxicity of BioQs with corona protein was tested by Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) in vivo. The results showed that BioQs were superior to quantum dots (QDs) without the corona protein in the acute toxicity test, longevity and the body length experiments in nematodes. In the BioQs group, there was no significant effect on mobility of C. elegans because the the corona protein could reduce the oxidative stress response of C. elegans. However, BioQs would be detected to accumulate in the gonad if under BioQs long-term treatment (≥ 72 hours) by fluorescence microscopy. The effect of BioQs on the innate immune system of nematodes was examined by tracking the expression of early (HSF, f49f1.6, f56d6.2 and k08d8.5) and late (spp-1, nlp-31, lys-7 and lys-8) immune pathway genes. Genes related to the DAF-2/DAF-16 and PMK-1 pathway were up-regulated shortly after exposure to BioQs, but expression across all immune pathway genes was suppressed after extended times. The results showed that the treatment of heavy metal pollution from waste stream by microorganisms, in which metal nanoparticles were formed containing corona proteins, affects, and this issue deserves attention.