Impact of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on the Composition of Gut Microbiota in Healthy and Autism Spectrum Disorder Children

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) seriously affects children’s health, while the gut microbiome has been widely hypothesized to be involved in the regulation of ASD behavior. This study investigated and compared the number, diversity, and population structure of gut microbiota between healthy and ASD children and their susceptibility to zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) based on the measurement of live cell number, living/dead bacterial staining test, flow cytometry observation and bacterial community analysis using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The result of this present study revealed that ASD children not only significantly reduced the live cell number and the community diversity of gut bacteria, but also changed the gut bacterial community composition compared to the healthy children. In addition, this result revealed that ZnONPs significantly reduced the number of live bacterial cells in the gut of healthy children, but not in that of ASD children. In contrast, ZnONPs generally increased the gut bacterial community diversity in both ASD and healthy children, while a greater increase was found in ASD children than that of healthy children. Furthermore, this study successfully isolated and identified some representative nanoparticle-resistant bacteria based on the color, shape, and edge of colony as well as the 16S rDNA sequence analysis. The community of nanoparticle-resistant bacteria differed in between healthy and ASD children. Indeed, the representative strains 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 and 6-4 from healthy children were identified as Bacillus anthracis, Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus and Escherichia coli with sequence similarity of 97.86%, 99.86%, 99.03% and 99.65%, respectively, while the representative strains 8-1, 8-2 and 8-3 from ASD children were identified as Bacillus cereus, with sequence similarities of 99.58%, 99.72% and 99.72%, respectively. Overall, this study demonstrated that ZnONPs caused a change in number, diversity, and species composition of gut bacteria, but differed in healthy and ASD children.

Additive Production of a Material Based on an Acrylic Polymer with a Nanoscale Layer of Zno Nanorods Deposited Using a Direct Current Magnetron Discharge: Morphology, Photoconversion Properties, and Biosafety

“…Zinc, as a chemical element, is a rather toxic compound [ 68 ]. Fundamentally, the antibacterial activity of the AP-ZnO material ( Figure 14 ) can be explained by several reasons: disruption of the cell membrane [ 69 ], binding to proteins and DNA [ 70 ], formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) [ 71 ], impaired amplification of bacterial DNA [ 70 ], and changes (more often, suppression) of expression in a wide range of genes [ 72 ].…”

Intestinal Microecology of Mice Exposed to TiO2 Nanoparticles and Bisphenol A

“…Microbial dysbiosis can aggravate various diseases, including diabetes, obesity, Crohn’s disease, and inflammatory bowel disease [ 1 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. In addition, the gut microbiota is highly sensitive to exogenous stressors, including nanoparticles (NPs) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”

Gut Microbiota as a Mediator of Essential and Toxic Effects of Zinc in the Intestines and Other Tissues

“…Correspondingly, in an autism model of Shank3B -/- KO mice, Zn supplementation (150 ppm) was shown to revert alterations in fungal and bacterial diversity, modify expression of tight junction genes, as well as genes involved in immune diseases and energy metabolism [ 78 ]. In corroboration, a recent study demonstrated that ZnONP supplementation in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was associated with significant improvement in intestinal bacterial biodiversity, ameliorated ASD-associated increases in Proteobacteria abundance, as well as a reduction in relative Firmicutes and Actinobacteria numbers [ 79 ]. Distinct patterns were revealed in another neurodevelopmental disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).…”