DNA DAMAGE INDUCED BY SILICA NANOPARTICLE

The nanotechnology industry, a rapidly growing industry, can have substantial impacts on economy, society and environment. Silica nanoparticles (SNPs) are used as food additive in many processed foods, in pharmaceutical drug tablets, glass, electronics and as hydrophobic anticancer drug. Studies on the genotoxic risk related with the new emerging nanomaterials are of increasing interest, mainly on those compounds with limited information on their potential genotoxic risk. In this study, we have evaluated the genotoxicity of different concentration of both the microparticulated form (silicon dioxide, SMP) and nanopartidies (15nm) of Silica on Allium cepa root meristem cells. Onion bulbs were exposed to SNP/SMP in solution. Our results show that the DNA damage in the cells exposed to all concentrations of SNP are statistically significant in comparison to the control cells, while the DNA damage in the cells exposed to only the highest concentration (100 mu g/mL) of microparticulated silica is statistically significant in comparison to the control cells. We can conclude that the microparticulated silica were not able to increase the DNA damage in low concentrations, but all applied doses of SNP are capable of inducing high levels of DNA damage.