title: Meta-analysis of cellular toxicity for cadmium-containing quantum dots.
abstract: Understanding the relationships between the physicochemical properties of engineered nanomaterials and their toxicity is critical for environmental and health risk analysis. However, this task is confounded by material diversity, heterogeneity of published data and limited sampling within individual studies. Here, we present an approach for analysing and extracting pertinent knowledge from published studies focusing on the cellular toxicity of cadmium-containing semiconductor quantum dots. From 307 publications, we obtain 1,741 cell viability-related data samples, each with 24 qualitative and quantitative attributes describing the material properties and experimental conditions. Using random forest regression models to analyse the data, we show that toxicity is closely correlated with quantum dot surface properties (including shell, ligand and surface modifications), diameter, assay type and exposure time. Our approach of integrating quantitative and categorical data provides a roadmap for interrogating the wide-ranging toxicity data in the literature and suggests that meta-analysis can help develop methods for predicting the toxicity of engineered nanomaterials.
authors.affiliation: Optical Sciences Division, Code 5611, US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, Washington DC 20375, USA.|Sotera Defense Solutions, Columbia, Maryland 21046, USA.
authors.forename: Eunkeu
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1496, USA.|Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-7227, USA.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-7227, USA.|Department of Medicine, Division of NanoMedicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Andre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nel
authors.affiliation: Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering, Code 6900, US Naval Research Laboratory, SW Washington, Washington DC 20375, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly Boeneman
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Gemill
authors.affiliation: Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-7227, USA.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bilal
authors.affiliation: Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1496, USA.|Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-7227, USA.|Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1592, USA.
authors.forename: Yoram
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.affiliation: Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering, Code 6900, US Naval Research Laboratory, SW Washington, Washington DC 20375, USA.
authors.forename: Igor L
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Medintz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002104:Cadmium / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D002470:Cell Survival; D006801:Humans; D020128:Inhibitory Concentration 50; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D045663:Quantum Dots / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D057188:Workflow
chemical_list: D002104:Cadmium