Nano Aerosol Chamber for In-Vitro Toxicity (NACIVT) studies

Abstract

Inhalation of ambient air particles or engineered nanoparticles (NP) handled as powders, dispersions or sprays in industrial processes and contained in consumer products pose a potential and largely unknown risk for incidental exposure. For efficient, economical and ethically sound evaluation of health hazards by inhaled nanomaterials, animal-free and realistic in vitro test systems are desirable. The new Nano Aerosol Chamber for in-vitro Toxicity studies (NACIVT) has been developed and fully characterized regarding its performance. NACIVT features a computer-controlled temperature and humidity conditioning, preventing cellular stress during exposure and allowing long-term exposures. Airborne NP are deposited out of a continuous air stream simultaneously on up to 24 cell cultures on Transwell® inserts, allowing high-throughput screening. In NACIVT, polystyrene as well as silver particles were deposited uniformly and efficiently on all 24 Transwell® inserts. Particle–cell interaction studies confirmed that deposited particles reach the cell surface and can be taken up by cells. As demonstrated in control experiments, there was no evidence for any adverse effects on human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) due to the exposure treatment in NACIVT. The new, fully integrated and transportable deposition chamber NACIVT provides a promising tool for reliable, acute and sub-acute dose-response studies of (nano)particles in air-exposed tissues cultured at the air–liquid interface.

• Air–liquid interface
• cellular dose
• electrostatic deposition
• inhalation toxicology
• particle–cell interaction

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr Ralf Kägi and Mr Brian Sinnet (EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland) for performing microwave digestion followed by ICP-MS and Miss Barbara Krieger (Institute of Anatomy, Bern, Switzerland) for excellent photographic assistance.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

This project was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (NRP 64, Project No. 406440-131267).