Cadmium telluride quantum dot-exposed human bronchial epithelial cells: a further study of the cellular response by proteomics

Abstract

Quantum dots (QDs) are luminescent nanoparticles with superior versatility. In this regard, cadmium telluride (CdTe) QDs have been widely used for various bioimaging applications. Although these nano-Cd containing particles can be capped with shells to reduce their cytotoxicity, these shells would be gradually disintegrated after a certain period of time, thereby inevitably exerting nanotoxicity. Previously, we showed that treatment of human bronchial epithelial BEAS-2B cells with uncapped CdTe QDs (520Q, 580Q and 730Q with emission maximum at 520, 580 and 730 nm, respectively) elicited dose-dependent cytotoxicity for 520Q and 580Q (<5 nm), while 730Q (>5 nm) elicited negligible cytotoxicity. In order to gain a more global perspective on the action mechanism of these nano-Cd particles, here, we further characterized the proteome response of BEAS-2B when challenged with the above QDs. Interestingly, among the three nano-Cd particles, we observed that 520Q and 580Q treatment altered the BEAS-2B proteome significantly in a very similar magnitude while 730Q has no obvious impact at all, as compared with the untreated control. Notably, the treatment of BEAS-2B with glutathione before nano-Cd particles abrogated the induction/repression of differentially expressed proteins and prevented cell death. Taken together, our findings show that uncapped CdTe nanoparticles (520Q and 580Q) induce oxidative stress in human bronchial epithelial cells, and the similarly altered protein signatures also suggest potential mitotoxicity and common cellular and detoxification responses upon exposure of lung cells to these two QDs. On the other hand, 730Q may exert a more noticeable effect after long-term exposure, but not upon transient exposure.

Review on Nanoparticles and Nanostructured Materials: Bioimaging, Biosensing, Drug Delivery, Tissue Engineering, Antimicrobial, and Agro-Food Applications

“…Many researchers worldwide are investigating whether and how nanoparticles (e.g., metals, metal oxides, carbon, quantum dots, liposomes, dendrimers) can be used as carriers for different therapeutic agents [ 88 , 89 ]. Graphene oxide nanosheets, graphene quantum dots, single/multiwalled carbon nanotubes, and graphene oxide nanosheets are carbon-based nanomaterials with different drug-loading capacities, targeting specificity, and drug release kinetics.…”

Applications and Immunological Effects of Quantum Dots on Respiratory System

“…520Q with 520 nm emission maximum and 580Q with 580 nm emission maximum treatment changed cells proteome greatly in a very similar magnitude. Pre-treatment of cells with glutathione impeded the different upregulated/downregulated proteins and blocked cell death, indicating that ROS mediated QDs-induced cytotoxicity ( 45 ).…”

Ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase isozyme L1/UCHL1 suppresses epithelial–mesenchymal transition and is under-expressed in cadmium-transformed human bronchial epithelial cells

“…For 2-D PAGE, subcellular fractions were further purified by employing the Plus One 2-D Clean-Up kit (Bio-Rad). Equal amounts of subcellular proteins followin g clean-up w ere subjected to 2-D gel electrophoresis through Ettan IPG phor 3 IEF (isoelectric focusing) system (GE Healthcare) and Hoefer SE 600 electrophoresis units as previously described (Xu et al 2019). After 2-D gel electrophoresis, ImageScanner III from GE Healthcare was applied to scan the silver staining gels and PDQuest software from Bio-Rad was used to analyze the gel images and quantify the intensity of protein spots.…”

“…Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis was used to investigate the biological significance of differentially expressed proteins identified from MS analysis using the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) as previously described (Xu et al 2019). All GO terms within the cellular component, molecular function, or biological process were arranged according to the -log 10 (p) values, which was considered to be significant when the -log 10 (p) level was more than 1.3 (which is p ≤ 0.05).…”