Intestinal epithelial cell injury induced by copper containing nanoparticles in piglets

The nano copper has been widely used in modern clinical medicine practice. However, it has been noticed that nano copper particles induce cell injury and toxicity. The present study was designed to determine the effect of nano copper particles on cell injury of intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) in piglets. The IECs were treated with different doses of nano copper (5, 10, 20 and 40μg/ml) for 24-48h to observe cell injury and toxicity. Cell injury was measured based on morphological and other changes including oxidative stress and genes expression. The oxidative stress markers were assayed by differential expression levels of SOD, MDA and Metallothionein (MT) in addition to CTR1, SOD1, COX17, MT and ATOX1 genes expression. Cellular morphology showed an increasing growth of cells without nano copper treatment and nano copper showed significant damage to IECs with higher dose as compared to low dose. Higher doses of copper nanoparticles (10, 20 and 40μg/ml) have membrane damaging effect on the intestinal epithelial cells, whereas MDA contents and MT value were significantly increased, and SOD activity was decreased with the increase in concentration of nanoparticles. Nano copper up-regulated the CTR1 and SOD1 genes and down-regulated the relative expression of COX17, MT and ATOX1 genes significantly in a dose-dependent manner. The findings of the current study provide important insights that nano copper plays an important role in intestinal epithelial cell injury and oxidative stress.