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Review
. 2020 Feb 10;10(7):3206-3222.
doi: 10.7150/thno.40414. eCollection 2020.

Autophagy Modulated by Inorganic Nanomaterials

Lingling Guo  1 , Nongyue He  1   2   3   4 , Yongxiang Zhao  4 , Tonghua Liu  3 , Yan Deng  2
Affiliations
Review

Autophagy Modulated by Inorganic Nanomaterials

Lingling Guo et al. Theranostics. .

Abstract

With the rapid development of nanotechnology, inorganic nanomaterials (NMs) have been widely applied in modern society. As human exposure to inorganic NMs is inevitable, comprehensive assessment of the safety of inorganic NMs is required. It is well known that autophagy plays dual roles in cell survival and cell death. Moreover, inorganic NMs have been proven to induce autophagy perturbation in cells. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of inorganic NMs-modulated autophagy is required for the safety assessment of inorganic NMs. This review presents an overview of a set of inorganic NMs, consisting of iron oxide NMs, silver NMs, gold NMs, carbon-based NMs, silica NMs, quantum dots, rare earth oxide NMs, zinc oxide NMs, alumina NMs, and titanium dioxide NMs, as well as how each modulates autophagy. This review emphasizes the potential mechanisms underlying NMs-induced autophagy perturbation, as well as the role of autophagy perturbation in cell fate determination. Furthermore, we also briefly review the potential roles of inorganic NMs-modulated autophagy in diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Keywords: autophagy perturbation; disease therapy; inorganic nanomaterials; nanotechnology; nanotoxicity.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Potential applications of various inorganic nanomaterials (NMs) in the biomedical field. MRI: magnetic resonance imaging; NIR: near-infrared; PPT: photothermal therapy; PA: photoacoustic.
Figure 2
Figure 2
AuNPs-induced autophagy and osteogenesis is size-dependent. (A) TEM images of AuNPs of different sizes. (B-C) AuNPs-induce autophagy in PDLPs in a size-dependent manner. AP: autophagosome; AL: autolysosome. (D) AuNPs-induced osteogenesis of PDLPs in a size-dependent manner. (E) Effects of autophagy inhibitors on 45 nm AuNP-induced osteogenic differentiation. Reprinted with permission from reference , copyright 2017 Ivyspring International Publisher.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Major properties of carbon-based nanomaterials and their potential applications in biomedicine. SWCNT: single-walled carbon nanotube; GO: graphene oxide; NIR: near-infrared.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Increased intracellular ROS generation and its role in inorganic nanomaterials-modulated autophagy. (A) Effect of AgNPs on the production of ROS, and (B) effect of the ROS scavengers Vit C and NAC on reduction in cell autophagy induced by AgNPs detected by LysoTracker Red assay. Reprinted with permission from reference , copyright 2017 Royal Society of Chemistry. (C) Effect of gold nanorods (CTAB) on the production of ROS, and (D) effect of NAC on the reduction in cell autophagy induced by gold nanorods (CTAB-GNRs) detected by western blot assay. Reprinted with permission from reference , copyright 2015 Springer Nature. (E) Effect of quantum dots (QD-COOH) on intracellular ROS determined using 2,7-dichlorofluorescein diacetate, and (F) effect of NAC on the reduction of cell autophagy induced by QD-COOH, detected by western blot. Reprinted with permission from reference , copyright 2013 American Chemical Society.
Figure 5
Figure 5
A summary of possible mechanisms underlying inorganic nanomaterials-modulated autophagy, and important roles of autophagy in cytotoxicity. IO NMs: iron oxide nanomaterials; Ag NMs: silver nanomaterials; Au NMs: gold nanomaterials.
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