Toxicity of binary mixtures of Al2O3 and ZnO nanoparticles toward fibroblast and bronchial epithelium cells

The objective of this study was to examine the cytotoxic effects of binary mixtures of Al2O3 and ZnO NPs using mouse fibroblast cells (L929) and human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) as biological test systems. The synergistic, additive, or antagonistic behavior of the binary mixture was also investigated. In toxicity experiments, cellular morphology, mitochondrial function (MTT assay), apoptosis, nuclear size and shape, clonogenic assays, and damage based upon oxidative stress parameters were assessed under control and NPs exposure conditions. Although Abbott modeling results provided no clear evidence of the binary mixture of Al2O3 and ZnO NPs exhibiting synergistic toxicity, some specific assays such as apoptosis, nuclear size and shape, clonogenic assay, activities of antioxidant enzymatic enzymes catalase, superoxide dismutase, and levels of glutathione resulted in enhanced toxicity for the mixtures with 1 and 1.75 toxic units (TU) toward both cell types. Data demonstrated that co-presence of Al2O3 and ZnO NPs in the same environment might lead to more realistic environmental conditions. Our findings indicate cytotoxicity of binary mixtures of Al2O3 and ZnO NPs produced greater effects compared to toxicity of either individual compound.