Toxicogenomic effects of nano- and bulk-TiO2 particles in the soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

The toxicity and toxicogenomics of selected anatase and rutile nanoparticles (NP) and bulk titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles were evaluated in the soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Results indicated that bulk or nano-TiO2 particles were slightly toxic to soil nematode C. elegans, as measured by reproduction EC50 values ranging from 4 to 32 mg/L. Whole-genome microarray results indicated that the regulation of glutathione-S-transferase gst-3, cytochrome P450 cypp33-c11, stress resistance regulator scl-1, oxidoreductase wah-1 and embryonic development pod-2 genes were significantly affected by nano-sized and bulk-TiO2 particles. More specifically, it was determined that anatase particles exerted a greater effect on metabolic pathways, whereas rutile particles had a greater effect on developmental processes. The up-regulation of the pod-2 gene corroborated the phenotypic effect observed in the reproduction test. Our results demonstrated that C. elegans is a good genomic model for nano-TiO2 toxicity assessment.