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Apoptosis induced by titanium dioxide nanoparticles in cultured murine microglia N9 cells

  • Articles / Immunology
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Owing to the rapidly increasing output of nano-scale titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles, their potential risk for central nerve system (CNS) has elicited much concern recently. Microglia is the resident macrophage in CNS and essential for the homeostasis of the CNS microenvironment. They are supposed to response to nanoparticles depositing in the brain tissues. Therefore, we investigated the cytotoxic effects of TiO2 NPs on microglia N9 cells in vitro. Results of propidium iodide/fluorescein diacetate (PI/FDA) double staining and MTT test clearly showed that TiO2 NPs more efficiently affected the viability of microglia N9 cells. Further Hoechst 33258 staining and flow cytometric analysis proved that nano-scale but not normal scale TiO2 induced apoptosis in vitro. These data suggest that TiO2 NPs can elicit apoptosis of N9 cells in vitro and thus present a potential risk for CNS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210009, China

    XiaoBo Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Environment and Heath of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Environmental Medicine, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, China

    ShunQing Xu

  3. Institute of Brain Research, University of Tuebingen, Calwer Str. 3, D-72076, Tuebingen, Germany

    ZhiRen Zhang & Hermann J. Schluesener

Authors
  1. XiaoBo Li
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  2. ShunQing Xu
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  3. ZhiRen Zhang
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  4. Hermann J. Schluesener
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Correspondence to XiaoBo Li.

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Supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC)

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Li, X., Xu, S., Zhang, Z. et al. Apoptosis induced by titanium dioxide nanoparticles in cultured murine microglia N9 cells. Chin. Sci. Bull. 54, 3830–3836 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-009-0548-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-009-0548-x

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