The Toxic Effects and Mechanisms of CuO and ZnO Nanoparticles

Materials

Ya-Nan Chang²  Mingyi Zhang²  Lin Xia¹  Jun Zhang¹ 

[1] School of Life Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China; E-Mail:;Chinese Academy of Science Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China; E-Mails:

关键词: CuO;    ZnO;    nanoparticles;    toxic effect;    size;    solubility;    exposure routes;    oxidative stress;    coordination effects;    non-homeostasis effects;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ma5122850

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Recent nanotechnological advances suggest that metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been expected to be used in various fields, ranging from catalysis and opto-electronic materials to sensors, environmental remediation, and biomedicine. However, the growing use of NPs has led to their release into environment and the toxicity of metal oxide NPs on organisms has become a concern to both the public and scientists. Unfortunately, there are still widespread controversies and ambiguities with respect to the toxic effects and mechanisms of metal oxide NPs. Comprehensive understanding of their toxic effect is necessary to safely expand their use. In this review, we use CuO and ZnO NPs as examples to discuss how key factors such as size, surface characteristics, dissolution, and exposure routes mediate toxic effects, and we describe corresponding mechanisms, including oxidative stress, coordination effects and non-homeostasis effects.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.