The distinct effect of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in primary and immortalized cell lines

The titanium dioxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been applied to biomedical, pharmaceutical, and food additive fields. However, the effect on health and the environment are conflicting; thus, it has been reviewing several times. In this context, establishing standard robust protocols for detecting cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of nanomaterials became essential for nanotechnology development. The cell type and the intrinsic characteristics of titanium dioxide NPs can influence nanotoxicity. In this work, the cyto- and genotoxicity effects of standard reference material titanium dioxide NPs in primary bovine fibroblasts and immortalized Chinese hamster ovary epithelial (CHO) cells were determined and compared for the first time. Titanium dioxide NPs exposure revealed no cytotoxicity for primary bovine fibroblasts, while only higher concentrations tested (10 μg/ml) induce genotoxic effects in this cell model. In contrast, the lower concentrations of the titanium dioxide NPs cause the cyto- and genotoxic effects in CHO cells. Therefore, our finding indicates that the CHO line was more sensitive toward the effects of titanium dioxide NPs than the primary bovine fibroblast, which should be valuable for their environmental risk assessment.