The nervous system is the major target for Gold nanoparticle-based therapy: Evidence from RNA sequencing data of C. elegans

The increasing use of gold nanoparticles (NPs) raises concerns about the potential effect of gold NPs exposure on human health. Therefore, gold NPs exposure is hard to evaluate at the organ level with current measurement technology. The bio-distribution assay showed that intestine was the organ with most gold NPs accumulated in C. elegans. However, our data indicated that 62.8% of the significant altered genes were function in the nervous system using tissue enrichment analysis. Notably, developmental stage analysis has demonstrated that NP exposure interfered with the development of animals. Furthermore, the transcription factors DAF-16 was regulating the oxidative stress genes induced by gold NPs. Therefore, we proposed the localization of the oxidative stress genes in the neuron cells and how their expression affect neuron communication. Our results demonstrate that the gold NPs-induced oxidative stress affects the nervous system via physical damage to the neurons and disruption of cell-to-cell communication. Future toxicology research on gold NPs should focus on neurons. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=120 HEIGHT=200 SRC="FIGDIR/small/699785v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (30K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@19effeorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@db10d9org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@2f4736org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1ec2a52_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG Graphical abstract C_FIG