Cellular and subcellular distribution of metals and metal nanoparticles, biomarkers and histopathology in mussels, mytilus galloprovincialis, exposed to engineered metal nanoparticles (zno, cds, ag, a

Resumen

The present work was aimed at identifying the potential risks to the environment posed by engineered nanoparticles by adressing several key questions: (1) How does the environment into which nanoparticles are released affect their physicochemical properties (in terms of solubility, aggregation¿)? (2) How does this change their ability to interact with organisms and cells (bioavailability)? (3) Does availability result in toxicity in all cases? (4) Are bioavailability and toxicity of engineered nanoparticles different to those of their bulk and aqueous counterparts? (5) Are biomarkers a suitable tool for the asessment of nanoparticle effects?. With that purpose, experiments were carried out to test the effect of dose and exposure time to TiO2, Au, ZnO, Ag and CdS NPs, in comparison to the bulk and aqueous forms of those metals in mussels, Mytilus galloprovincialis. As a result, the key factors driving nanoparticle toxicity were identified, and the influence of size, solubility, elementalcomposition, capping agents and additives on bioavailability, cell and tissue distribution, and effects were determined.