A Murine Oral-Exposure Model for Nano- and Micro-Particulates: Demonstrating Human Relevance with Food-Grade Titanium Dioxide.

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Authors
Abstract

Human exposure to persistent, nonbiological nanoparticles and microparticles via the oral route is continuous and large scale (10 -10 particles per day per adult in Europe). Whether this matters or not is unknown but confirmed health risks with airborne particle exposure warns against complacency. Murine models of oral exposure will help to identify risk but, to date, lack validation or relevance to humans. This work addresses that gap. It reports i) on a murine diet, modified with differing concentrations of the common dietary particle, food grade titanium dioxide (fgTiO ), an additive of polydisperse form that contains micro- and nano-particles, ii) that these diets deliver particles to basal cells of intestinal lymphoid follicles, exactly as is reported as a "normal occurrence" in humans, iii) that confocal reflectance microscopy is the method of analytical choice to determine this, and iv) that food intake, weight gain, and Peyer's patch immune cell profiles, up to 18 weeks of feeding, do not differ between fgTiO -fed groups or controls. These findings afford a human-relevant and validated oral dosing protocol for fgTiO risk assessment as well as provide a generalized platform for application to oral exposure studies with nano- and micro-particles.

Year of Publication
2020
Journal
Small
Pages
e2000486
Date Published
2020 May 04
ISSN
1613-6829
DOI
10.1002/smll.202000486
PubMed ID
32363770
Links
Grant list
AgResearch
U105960399 / MRC Elsie Widdowson Laboratory
Nutrigenomics New Zealand
AgResearch, Plant and Food Research
University of Auckland
C11 × 1009 / Ministry for Science and Innovation
Massey University and AgResearch
MR/R005699/1 / MRC_ / Medical Research Council / United Kingdom