Evaluation of Biological Toxicity of CdTe Quantum Dots with Different Coating Reagents according to Protein Expression of Engineering Escherichia coli

• Published in: Journal of nanomaterials Vol. 2015; no. 2015; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Liang, Jiangong, Han, Heyou, Xu, Chaoyong, Du, Ting, Xu, Wei, Xiao, Shaobo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Publishing Corporation 01.01.2015; Hindawi Limited
• Subjects: Assessments; Bacteriology; Biological; Cadmium; Cadmium tellurides; Colleges & universities; Cytotoxicity; Design analysis; E coli; Engineering; Escherichia coli; Laboratories; Ligands; Nanomaterials; Nanoparticles; Protein expression; Proteins; Quantum dots; Science; Sodium; Toxicity
• ISSN: 1687-4110; 1687-4129
• DOI: 10.1155/2015/583963

The results obtained from toxicity assessment of quantum dots (QDs) can be used to establish guidelines for the application of QDs in bioimaging. This paper focused on the design of a novel method to evaluate the toxicity of CdTe QDs using engineering Escherichia coli as a model. The toxicity of mercaptoacetic acid (MPA), glutathione (GSH), and L-cysteine (Cys) capped CdTe QDs was analyzed according to the heterologous protein expression in BL21/DE3, engineering Escherichia coli extensively used for protein expression. The results showed that the MPA-CdTe QDs had more serious toxicity than the other two kinds of CdTe QDs. The microscopic images and SEM micrographs further proved that both the proliferation and the protein expression of engineering Escherichia coli were inhibited after treatment with MPA-CdTe QDs. The proposed method is important to evaluate biological toxicity of both QDs and other nanoparticles.