Research Advances on the Adverse Effects of Nanomaterials in a Model Organism, Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

Along with the rapid development of nanotechnology, the bio-safety assessment of nanotechnology products, including nanomaterials, becomes more and more important. Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a valuable model organism that has been widely used in the field of biology because of their excellent This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Accepted Articleadvantages, including low cost, small size, short life span, and highly conservative genomes with vertebral animals. In recent years, the number of nanotoxicological researches using C. elegans is persistently growing. According to these available studies, this review classified the adverse effects of nanomaterials in C. elegans into systematic, cellular and molecular toxicity, and focused on summarizing and analyzing the underlying mechanisms of metal, metal oxide and non-metallic nanomaterials causing toxic effects in C. elegans. The findings in this review provided an insight in further studies on assessing bio-safety of nanomaterials in the ecosystem using C. elegans.

In Vitro and In Vivo Biocompatibility Studies on Engineered Fabric with Graphene Nanoplatelets

“…The nematode C. elegans has become an important in vivo alternative assay system to evaluate the safety of nanomaterial applications, especially in initial biological screenings of new nanoparticles. This model organism has been successfully applied to assess the potential risks to human and environmental health, thanks to its numerous advantages of use [31]. Even if these animals do not have any specific organs such as eyes, heart or kidneys, they can be suitable to understand the interaction between nanomaterials and biological barriers similar to those of mammals, such as the skin and intestine [59].…”

“…Moreover, we evaluated in vivo possible adverse effects of the graphene nanoplatelets eventually detached from the engineered fabric surface, using the model system Caenorhabditis elegans. Its easy handling, body transparency, small size, short life cycle and fully sequenced genome with a high human homology make C. elegans a very suitable model for nanotoxicology studies [30,31]. Several toxicity markers such as vitality, reproduction, larval development, motility and response to oxidative stress have been widely employed to investigate the negative consequences of different nanomaterials on this nematode [32].…”

A Deep Learning Analysis Reveals Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Quantum Dots Damage Neurons of Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

“…The location of dopaminergic neurons in C. elegans include four left-right pairs of neurons: one pair of cephalic sensilla-dorsal neurons (CEPD), one pair of cephalic sensillaventral neurons (CEPV) and one pair of class E anterior deirid neurons (ADE) in the anterior part of the nematode, and one pair of class E posterior deirid neurons (PDE) in the posterior part of the nematode (Figure 6a) [33]. When nematodes were exposed to nanomaterials, their neurons underwent morphological decline [16,34] Firstly, the morphological changes in dopaminergic neurons were quantitatively analyzed using the deep learning method. Metrics included average number of neurons, average of mean size of neuron bodies and average fluorescence intensity indicate the loss of soma, shrunken soma, and neurodegeneration of neurons because of their potential biological significance in the neurotoxicological study.…”

“…In present years, an animal model called C. elegans have been widely used for biosafety assessment of nanomaterials due to many virtues, including transparent body, high fertility, short life cycle, low husbandry cost and conserved evolutionary modules in the genome [14,15]. This organism has been reported to be used in toxicological studies of different nanomateirals, including carbon-based nanoparticles and quantum dots [14,16]. Meanwhile, the number of applications of C. elegans in assessing nanomaterials in the nervous system, especially adverse morphological changes of neurons, is increasing [17][18][19][20].…”

Extracellular Vesicles From Microalgae: Uptake Studies in Human Cells and Caenorhabditis elegans

“…As such, invertebrate in vivo assays have been recently considered highly suitable tests ( Hunt, 2016 ; Wu et al, 2019 ). Unlike higher organisms, invertebrate models such as C. elegans are faster, less expensive and raise less ethical concerns for scientific research, hence fulfilling the 3R principles ( Li et al, 2021 ). In addition, owing to its body transparency, C. elegans has been used to study nanoparticle uptake, toxicity and biodistribution ( Scharf et al, 2013 ), to understand EVs secretion and function ( Beer et al, 2016 ), or to explore the modulation of probiotic bacteria-derived EVs on host immune responses ( Li et al, 2017 ).…”