RESEARCH ARTICLE


Silver Nanoparticles Affect the Inflammatory Response in a Lung Epithelial Cell Line



Alaa Fehaid1, 2, 3, Ryo Fujii4, Takeshi Sato4, Akiyoshi Taniguchi1, 2, *
1 Cellular Functional Nanobiomaterials Group, Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
2 Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
3 Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt
4 Glycobiology Laboratory, Nagaoka University of Technology, 1603-1 Kamitomiokamachi, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2137, Japan


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Creative Commons License
© 2020 Fehaid et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Cellular Functional Nanomaterials Group, Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan; Tel: 81-29-860-4505; E-mail: taniguchi.akiyoshi@nims.go.jp


Abstract

Background and Objectives:

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have a dual effect showing both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory effects; however, the molecular mechanism of their anti-inflammatory effect is not clearly understood. In this study, we investigated the effect of AgNPs on the inflammatory response.

Methods:

We induced an inflammatory response in a lung epithelial cell line using tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) as an in vitro inflammatory model. Then the effect of AgNPs on the TNFα-induced inflammatory response was observed.

Results:

The mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β and IL-18) showed upregulation of IL-1β by AgNPs alone. However, AgNPs reduced the TNFα-induced upregulation of IL-1β and IL-18. AgNPs reduced the TNFα-induced NF-KB response, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, Nod Like Receptor Family-Pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) gene expression, and caspase-1 activation, indicating that the anti-inflammatory effect of AgNPs was by inhibition of both NF-KB transcriptional and inflammasome pathways. Conversely, AgNPs alone induced the activation of both NF-KB transcriptional and inflammasome pathways, suggesting their involvement in the molecular mechanism of the inflammatory effect of AgNPs.

Conclusion:

Altogether, these findings show that two different pathways are involved in the molecular mechanism of both the dose-dependent inflammatory effect of AgNPs alone and the anti-inflammatory effect of AgNPs against the TNFα-induced inflammatory response. Understanding this mechanism will help to improve the medical applications of AgNPs and suggest their potential as a TNFα inhibitor to treat TNFα-induced inflammatory diseases.

Keywords: Silver nanoparticles, Tumor necrosis factor, Inflammation, Inflammasome, Lung cell line, Cytokines.