Dietary silver nanoparticles can disturb the gut microbiota in mice

Humans are increasingly exposed via the diet to Ag nanoparticles (NP)used in the food industry. Because of their anti-bacterial activity, ingested Ag NP might disturb the gut microbiota that is essential for local and systemic homeostasis. We explored here the possible impact of dietary Ag NP on the gut microbiota in mice at doses relevant for currently estimated human intakeMice were orally exposed to food (pellets) supplemented with increasingdoses of Ag NP (0, 46, 460 or 4600 ppb) during 28 d. Body weight, systemicinflammation and gut integrity were investigated to determine overall toxicity, and feces DNA collected from the gut were analyzed by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to assess the effect of Ag NP on the bacterial population. Ag NP were characterized alone and in the supplemented pellets by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX).