Comparative pulmonary toxicity of inhaled nickel nanoparticles; role of deposited dose and solubility

Abstract

In this pilot study, we investigated which physicochemical properties of nickel hydroxide nanoparticles (nano-NH) were mainly responsible in inducing pulmonary toxicity. First, we studied the role of nickel ions solubilized from nano-NH by comparing the toxic effects of nano-NH to those of readily soluble nickel sulfate nanoparticles (nano-NS). Additionally, to test whether there was a non-specific stress response due to particle morphology, we compared the toxicity of nano-NH with that of carbon nanoparticles (nano-C) and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nano-Ti), both of which had similar physical properties such as particle size and shape, to nano-NH. We exposed mice to each type of nanoparticles for 4 h via a whole-body inhalation system and examined oxidative stress and inflammatory responses in the lung. We also determined the lung burden and clearance of Ni following nano-NH and nano-NS exposures. The results showed that lung deposition of nano-NH was significantly greater than that of nano-NS and nano-NH appeared to have stronger inflammogenic potential than nano-NS even when lung Ni burden taken into consideration. This suggests that the toxicity of nano-NH is not driven solely by released Ni ions from deposited nano-NH particles. However, it is unlikely that the greater toxic potential of nano-NH is attributable to a generic stress response from any nanoparticle exposure, since nano-C and nano-Ti did not elicit toxic responses similar to those of nano-NH. These results indicate that the observed pulmonary toxicity by inhaled nano-NH were chemical-specific and deposited dose and solubility are key factors to understand toxicity induced by nano-NH.

Keywords::

• Nickel
• nanoparticles
• inhalation toxicity
• lung deposition
• solubility

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mr. Mianhua Zhong for assistance in installing the exposure system; Mr. Alan Bowers for analyzing tissue samples with the GF-AAS.

Declaration of interest

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (RO1 ES015439 to L-C.C.). The authors report no declaration of interest.