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Nickel nanoparticle-induced dose-dependent cyto-genotoxicity in human breast carcinoma MCF-7 cells
Authors Ahamed M, Alhadlaq H
Received 22 November 2013
Accepted for publication 21 December 2013
Published 14 February 2014 Volume 2014:7 Pages 269—280
DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/OTT.S58044
Checked for plagiarism Yes
Review by Single anonymous peer review
Peer reviewer comments 5
Maqusood Ahamed,1 Hisham A Alhadlaq1,2
1King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology, King Saud University, 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Abstract: Despite the widespread application of nickel nanoparticles (Ni NPs) in industrial, commercial, and biomedical fields, their response to human cells has not been clearly elucidated. In the study reported here, Ni NPs with a 28 nm diameter were used to study their interaction with human breast carcinoma (MCF-7) cells. Dose-dependent decreased cell viability and damaged cell membrane integrity showed the cytotoxic potential of the Ni NPs. We further found that Ni NPs induce oxidative stress in a dose-dependent manner, as evidenced by glutathione depletion and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Comet assay indicated the dose-dependent induction of DNA damage due to Ni NP exposure. The level of messenger RNA, as well as activity of caspase-3 enzyme, was higher in MCF-7 cells exposed to Ni NPs than in control cells. Moreover, we observed statistically significant correlations of ROS with cell viability (R2=0.984), DNA damage (% tail DNA) (R2=0.982), and caspase-3 enzyme activity (R2=0.991). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on human breast cancer cells to have shown the cyto-genotoxicity of Ni NPs, which seems to be mediated through ROS.
Keywords: cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, reactive oxygen species, glutathione, caspase-3 enzyme
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