Increased interleukin-11 and stress genes in human endothelial and human bronchial epithelial cell lines by silver nanoparticles

Because of their small size, nanoparticles that enter the human body can easily penetrate biological barriers and can be circulated throughout the entire body, ultimately reaching the vascular endothelium. In this study aimed to identify cell reponses by distinguishing endothelial cell and exposing them to silver nanoparticles. The study also assesseed several gene expression levels that increased significantly in the microarray assay. We verified through microarray that 5 nm silver nanoparticles affect the variation of gene expression in cells, and a noticeable increase in the expression of interleukin (IL)-8 and IL-11 genes in early time was also verified. This study found that the variation on oxidative stress related genes in early time, amd among them the variation of metallothionein(MT), heme oxygenase 1(HO1), and heat shock 70kDa protein(HSP70) expression, was noticeable. This study finds that intracellular genes specifically respond to exposure to silver nanoparticles and that the expression of IL-11 among cytokines is noticeable. cDNA for microarray analysis was collected after 6h of exposure to silver nanoparticles at near the LD50 concentration, in order to detec changes in gene expression at a dose that dose not produce obvious cell damage. (Gene expression was screened using cDNA microarray analysis and confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR.)