Comparative cytotoxicity evaluation of lanthanide nanomaterials on mouse and human cell lines with metabolic and DNA-quantification assays

Abstract

Lanthanide nanomaterials are considered a less toxic alternative to quantum dots for bioimaging applications. This study evaluated the cytotoxicity of terbium (Tb)-doped gadolinium oxide (Gd₂O₃) and dysprosium oxide (Dy₂O₃) nanoparticles exposed to human (BEAS-2B) and mouse (L929) cell lines at a concentration range of 200–2000 (μg/ml for 48 h. Two assay methods were utilized—WST-8 assay (colorimetric) based on mitochondrial metabolic activity and Pico-Green assay (fluorescence), which measures total DNA content. The authors' data showed that Tb-doped Gd2O3 nanoparticles were consistently more toxic than Tb-doped Dy₂O₃ nanoparticles. However, exposure to these nanomaterials caused a decrease in proliferation rate for both cell lines rather than a net loss of viable cells after 48 h of exposure. Additionally, there was some degree of discrepancy observed with the two assay methods. For the mouse L929 cell line, the WST-8 assay yielded consistently lower proliferation rates compared to the Pico-Green assay, whereas the opposite trend was observed for the human BEAS-2B cell line. This could arise because of the differential effects of these nanoparticles on the metabolism of L929 and BEAS-2B cells, which in turn may translate to differences in their postexposure proliferation rates. Hence, the Pico-Green assay could have an advantage over the WST-8 assay because it is not skewed by the differential effects of nanomaterials on cellular metabolism.