Transcriptomic and proteomic responses of silver nanoparticles in hepatocyte-like cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells

Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles by sweet cherry and its application against cherry spot disease

Asia has a rich history of cultivating sweet cherries, a practice that has been carried out since ancient times. However, the effective management of Alternaria disease in sweet cherry crops has presented a formidable challenge, resulting in notable decreases in yield. Various attempts have been made to employ both chemical and biological treatments; however, their effectiveness has been restricted. In order to tackle this problem, an investigation was carried out, with the primary objective of isolating and identifying Alternaria isolates that are accountable for the occurrence of sweet cherry soft spot rot. Out of the twelve isolates examined, the CHM-4 isolate was found to be the most pathogenic. Its identification was achieved through the use of the ITS genomic region (ITS1 and ITS4), and the BLAST results revealed a 95 % similarity with Alternaria alternata (MG744381.1). The objective of the research was to explore the potential of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) synthesized by phytosynthesis as a novel antifungal agent to combat sweet cherry soft spot pathogenicity. The biosynthesis of SNPs was carried out using sweet cherry fruits kernel exudate, which served as an environmentally friendly source. The exudates exhibited the ability to produce nanoparticles with an average size of 24.97 nm. Analysis conducted using a transmission electron microscope (TEM) revealed the multifaceted structure of these nanoparticles. Furthermore, when tested at concentrations of 5, 10, 20, and 40 μg/ml, these biosynthetic nanoparticles demonstrated the capability to inhibit the growth of Alternaria fungi and effectively destroy fungal hyphae. It is advisable to utilize diverse components of sweet cherry for the synthesis of various nanoparticles owing to their compatibility with the surrounding environment.

scRNA-seq analysis discovered suppression of immunomodulatory dependent inflammatory response in PMBCs exposed to silver nanoparticles

The assessment of AgNPs toxicity in vitro and in vivo models are frequently conflicting and inaccurate. Nevertheless, single cell immunological responses in a heterogenous environment have received little attention. Therefore, in this study, we have performed in-depth analysis which clearly revealed cellular-metal ion association as well as specific immunological response. Our study didn't show significant population differences in PMBC between control and AgNPs group implying no toxicological response. To confirm it further, deep profiling identified differences in subsets and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of monocytes, B cells and T cells. Notably, monocyte subsets showed significant upregulation of metallothionein (MT) gene expression such as MT1G, MT1X, MT1E, MT1A, and MT1F. On the other hand, downregulation of pro-inflammatory genes such as IL1β and CCL3 in both CD16 + and CD16- monocyte subsets were observed. This result indicated that AgNPs association with monocyte subsets de-promoted inflammatory responsive genes suggesting no significant toxicity observed in AgNPs treated group. Other cell types such as B cells and T cells also showed negligible differences in their subsets suggesting no toxicity response. Further, AgNPs treated group showed upregulation of cell proliferation, ribosomal synthesis, downregulation of cytokine release, and T cell differentiation inhibition. Overall, our results conclude that treatment of AgNPs to PMBC cells didn't display immunological related cytotoxicity response and thus motivate researchers to use them actively for biomedical applications.

Silver nitroprusside as an efficient chemodynamic therapeutic agent and a peroxynitrite nanogenerator for targeted cancer therapies

INTRODUCTION

Chemodynamic therapy (CDT) holds great promise in achieving cancer therapy through Fenton and Fenton-like reactions, which generate highly toxic reactive species. However, CDT is limited by the lower amount of catalyst ions that can decompose already existing intracellular H2O2 and produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) to attain a therapeutic outcome.

OBJECTIVES

To overcome these limitations, a tailored approach, which utilizes dual metals cations (Ag+, Fe2+) based silver pentacyanonitrosylferrate or silver nitroprusside (AgNP) were developed for Fenton like reactions that can specifically kill cancer cells by taking advantage of tumor acidic environment without used of any external stimuli.

METHODS

A simple solution mixing procedure was used to synthesize AgNP as CDT agent. AgNP were structurally and morphologically characterized, and it was observed that a minimal dose of AgNP is required to destroy cancer cells with limited effects on normal cells. Moreover, comprehensive in vitro studies were conducted to evaluate antitumoral mechanism.

RESULTS

AgNP have an effective ability to decompose endogenous H2O2 in cells. The decomposed endogenous H2O2 generates several different types of reactive species (•OH, O2•-) including peroxynitrite (ONOO-) species as apoptotic inducers that kill cancer cells, specifically. Cellular internalization data demonstrated that in short time, AgNP enters in lysosomes, avoid degradation and due to the acidic pH of lysosomes significantly generate high ROS levels. These data are further confirmed by the activation of different oxidative genes. Additionally, we demonstrated the biocompatibility of AgNP on mouse liver and ovarian organoids as an ex vivo model while AgNP showed the therapeutic efficacy on patient derived tumor organoids (PDTO).

CONCLUSION

This work demonstrates the therapeutic application of silver nitroprusside as a multiple ROS generator utilizing Fenton like reaction. Thereby, our study exhibits a potential application of CDT against HGSOC (High Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer), a deadly cancer through altering the redox homeostasis.

Unveiling potentially convergent key events related to adverse outcome pathways induced by silver nanoparticles via cross-species omics-scale analysis

The adverse effects of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been studied in various models. However, there has been discordance between molecular responses across the literature, attributed to methodological biases and the physicochemical variability of AgNPs. In this study, a gene pathway meta-analysis was conducted to identify convergent and divergent key events (KEs) associated with AgNPs and explore common patterns of these KEs across species. We performed a cross-species analysis of transcriptomic data from multiple studies involving various AgNPs exposure. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed a set of pathways linked to oxidative stress, apoptosis, and metabolite and lipid metabolism, which are considered potentially conserved KEs across species. Subsequently, experiments confirmed that oxidative stress responses could be early KEs in both Caenorhabditis elegans and HepG2 cells. Moreover, AgNPs preferentially impaired the mitochondria, as evidenced by mitochondrial fragmentation and dysfunction. Furthermore, disruption of amino acids, nucleotides, sulfur compounds, glycerolipids, and glycerophospholipids metabolism were in good agreement with gene pathway shreds of evidence. Our findings imply that, although there may be organism-specific responses, potentially conserved events could exist regardless of species and physicochemical factors. These results provide valuable insights into the development of adverse outcome pathways of AgNPs across species and the regulatory toxicity of AgNPs.

Omics approaches for the assessment of biological responses to nanoparticles

Nanotechnology has enabled the development of innovative therapeutics, diagnostics, and drug delivery systems. Nanoparticles (NPs) can influence gene expression, protein synthesis, cell cycle, metabolism, and other subcellular processes. While conventional methods have limitations in characterizing responses to NPs, omics approaches can analyze complete sets of molecular entities that change upon exposure to NPs. This review discusses key omics approaches, namely transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics and multi-omics, applied to the assessment of biological responses to NPs. Fundamental concepts and analytical methods used for each approach are presented, as well as good practices for omics experiments. Bioinformatics tools are essential to analyze, interpret and visualize large omics data, and to correlate observations in different molecular layers. The authors envision that conducting interdisciplinary multi-omics analyses in future nanomedicine studies will reveal integrated cell responses to NPs at different omics levels, and the incorporation of omics into the evaluation of targeted delivery, efficacy, and safety will improve the development of nanomedicine therapies.

Human functional genomics reveals toxicological mechanism underlying genotoxicants-induced inflammatory responses under low doses exposure

Understanding the toxicological mechanisms of chemicals is essential for accurate assessments of environmental health risks. Inflammation could play a critical role in the adverse health outcomes caused by genotoxicants; however, the toxicological mechanisms underlying genotoxicants-induced inflammatory response are still limited. Here, functional genomics CRISPR screens were performed to enhance the mechanistic understanding of the genotoxicants-induced inflammatory response at low doses exposure. Key genes and pathways associated with the activities of immune cells and the production of cytokines were identified by CRISPR screens of 6 model genotoxicants. Gene network analysis revealed that three genes (TLR10, HCAR2 and TRIM6) were involved in the regulation of neutrophil apoptosis and cytokine release, and TLR10 shared a similar functional pattern with HCAR2 and TRIM6. Furthermore, adverse outcome pathway (AOP) network analysis revealed that TLR10 was involved in the molecular initiating events (MIEs) or key events (KEs) in the inflammatory response AOPs of all the 6 genotoxicants, which provided mechanistic links between TLR10 and genotoxicants-induced inflammation and respiratory diseases. Finally, functional validation tests demonstrated that TLR10 exhibited inhibitory effects on genotoxicants-induced inflammatory responses in both epithelial and immune cells. This study highlights the powerful utility of the integration of CRISPR screen and AOP network analysis in illuminating the toxicological causal mechanisms of environmental chemicals.

Silver nanoparticles instigate physiological, genotoxicity, and ultrastructural anomalies in midgut tissues of beetles

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have long been materials of great interest in numerous fields; however, there is escalating alarm over their toxicity to public health since exposure to these particles is inevitable. This study sheds light on the deleterious impacts of AgNPs on the midgut tissues of beetles (Blaps polychresta) collected from Egypt as a biological model. The investigations were conducted on the beetles administered with a sublethal dose of AgNPs (0.03 mg/g body weight) after 30 days. Oxidative stress parameters and antioxidant enzyme activities were assessed, which exposed critical disruption in the antioxidant defense system of treated beetles. Remarkably, metallothionein (MT) gene expression was significantly increased, while reduced glutathione (GSH) level was notably decreased in midgut tissues subjected to AgNPs. These findings manifestly imply the presence of overproduction in terms of reactive oxygen species (ROS) inside the cells. Additionally, DNA impairment and apoptosis of midgut cells were appraised employing comet and flow cytometry analyses, respectively. The comet results revealed a significant increase in comet cells for the AgNPs treated beetles compared with the control group. Furthermore, the apoptosis results demonstrated a substantial diminution in viable cells with significant growth in apoptotic cells in midgut cells exposed to AgNPs, manifesting their striking correlation with comet and biochemical findings. Noticeably, the histopathological and ultrastructural inspections revealed substantial aberrations in the midgut tissues in the AgNPs treated group, substantiating the previous results. As far as we know, no research has been found that surveyed how the AgNPs at low doses affect the midgut tissues of beetles. Overall, these findings evince the aberrant influences of AgNPs on living organisms.