The Toxicity of Nanoparticles to Human Endothelial Cells

The use of nanoparticles (NPs) in commercially available products and as biomedicinal materials could lead to increasing contact of human blood vessels with NPs, and it is necessary to assess the potential adverse effects of NPs to cells lining blood vessels. Of them, endothelial cells (ECs) are of particular relevance as they play a crucial role in the regulation of function of blood vessels. In this book chapter, I discussed studies that used human ECs to study the toxicity and mechanisms of NPs. It has been shown that exposure of human ECs to NPs could lead to cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, endothelial activation and impaired NO signaling. Oxidative stress and inflammation induced by NPs have been suggested as the mechanisms associated with the toxicity of NPs to ECs, and a three-tier model has been proposed to explain the association between NP induced oxidative stress and toxicity. In recent years, dysfunction of autophagy (excessive autophagy induction) has also been suggested as one of the mechanisms associated with the toxicity of NPs to human ECs. In the future, it is necessary to use human ECs to assess the toxicity of NPs to better understand the potential adverse effects of NPs entering circulation.