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Increased response to oxidative stress challenge of nano-copper-induced apoptosis in mesangial cells

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Abstract

Recently, many studies reported that nanosized copper particles (nano-Cu, the particle size was around 15–30 nm), one of the nanometer materials, could induce nephrotoxicity. To detect the effect of nano-Cu on mesangial cells (MCs), and investigate the underlying mechanism, MCs were treated with different concentrations of nano-Cu (1, 10, and 30 μg/mL) to determine the oxidative stress and apoptotic changes. It was revealed that nano-Cu could induce a decreased viability in MCs together with a significant increase in the number of apoptotic cells by using cell counting kit-8 assay and flow cytometry. The apoptotic morphological changes induced by nano-Cu in MCs were demonstrated by Hochest33342 staining. Results showed that nano-Cu induced the nuclear fragmentation in MCs. Meanwhile, nano-Cu significantly increased the levels of reactive oxygen species, especially increased the levels of H2O2. It also decreased the activity of total SOD enzyme. In addition, when pre-treated with N-(2-mercaptopropionyl)-glycine, the cell apoptosis induced by nano-Cu was significantly decreased. These results suggest that oxidative stress plays an important role in the nano-Cu toxicity in MCs, which may be the main mechanism of nano-Cu-induced nephrotoxicity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31271074) and the National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB944003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Tumor Microenvironment and Neurovascular Regulation, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Pengjuan Xu, Zhigui Li, Xiaochen Zhang & Zhuo Yang

  2. School of Integrative Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, 300193, China

    Pengjuan Xu

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  1. Pengjuan Xu
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  2. Zhigui Li
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  4. Zhuo Yang
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Correspondence to Zhuo Yang.

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Xu, P., Li, Z., Zhang, X. et al. Increased response to oxidative stress challenge of nano-copper-induced apoptosis in mesangial cells. J Nanopart Res 16, 2777 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-014-2777-4

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