title: Comparing the toxic mechanism of synthesized zinc oxide nanomaterials by physicochemical characterization and reactive oxygen species properties.
abstract: We studied the toxicity of ZnO nanomaterials in terms of physicochemical characteristics and reactive oxygen species (ROS) properties. ZnO nanorods [synthesized at room temperature (ZnO-RT, length; 18.0±4.2 nm) and at 60 °C (ZnO-60, length; 80.5±6.8 nm)] were used to evaluate the potential toxicity upon growth velocity-related particle size. The cytotoxicity of ZnO-60 was higher than that of ZnO-RT. We observed that the toxicity of ZnO-RT and ZnO-60 was related with ROS formation by using antioxidant N-acetylcysteine and electron spin resonance. Also, we found that the source of toxicity was not related to Zn(2+) ions released from ZnO in 24h treatment. Our results indicate that toxicity of ZnO nanorods is caused by the amounts of ROS. Our study strongly suggests that size of nanomaterial is not the sole factor to be considered, thus, the development of appropriate criteria based on morphological/physicochemical characteristics as well as synthesis procedures is needed to evaluate the precise toxicity.
authors.affiliation: R&D Center, Biterials Co., Ltd., Seoul, Republic of Korea. sjpark@biterials.com
authors.forename: Soo Jin
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Young Chan
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Sang Won
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Min Sook
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Kyeong-Nam
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Haksung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Jin-Kyu
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jun Sung
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Myung-Haing
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Cho
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D004578:Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D043942:Nanotubes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species / Q000378:metabolism*; D019097:Spin Trapping; D015034:Zinc Oxide / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species; D015034:Zinc Oxide