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Nanotoxicity Activity 2

Toxicity of Nanoparticles on Zebrafish

Introduction

The increasing concentration of nanoparticles in the environment due to the increasing commercialisation of nanomaterials and their products may have negative consequences on the environment . To determine the toxicity of nanoparticles, zebrafish, Danio rerio, have been used as a representative model organism .

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A study conducted by Ong et al. concluded that 10mg/L of silver and cadmium selenide nanoparticles delayed the hatching of zebrafish . The hatching of zebrafish embryos was completely inhibited by 10mg/L and 100mg/L of zinc oxide nanoparticles and 100mg/L of cadmium selenide nanoparticles . This inhibition resulted in the death of the embryos within the chorion .

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For the following activity, you are a research fellow investigating the toxicity of nanoparticles on zebrafish embryos. To begin, you setup three 6-well plates and place four healthy zebrafish embryos in each of the wells on the plates.

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To plate #1 you add 0.1μg/ml of nanomaterial A into each of the wells. This low dose appears to have no effect on the embryos after 24 hours.

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Plate #1

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To plate #2 you add 1μg/ml of nanomaterial A into each of the wells, and after 24 hours you see that half of all the embryos have survived.

Plate #2

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To plate #3 you add 10μg/ml of nanomaterial A into each of the wells, and after 24 hours you see that none of the embryos have survived.

Plate #3

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Create a word document or download the student activity sheet to the right (click on word document icon) to answer the following questions:

  1. Draw a graph to depict the toxicity of nanomaterial A. Make concentration (μg/ml) the x variable and mortality (%) the y variable. Your range for concentration should be between 0.1 to 10μg/ml. Include a meaningful title.
     

  2. Using your graph, draw a line of best fit and predict the concentration at which the mortality of the zebrafish embryos would be 80%.
     

  3. a) What is the dependent variable for this experiment?
    b) What is the independent variable for this experiment?
    c) Define what is meant by the term, controlled variable?
    d) Describe a control set up for this experiment.
    e) In order to ensure a fair test, a number of variables should be controlled. List two controlled     ....variables for this experiment.


    The following table depicts the results from two other experiments involving nanomaterials B and C.









     

  4. Which nanomaterial mentioned in the table above is more toxic to zebrafish? Explain using data from the table.
     

  5. How do you think these nanomaterials will come into contact with zebrafish and their natural environment?
     

  6. Why do you think zebrafish are commonly used in nano-toxicology experiments?
     

  7. Using the link below, give three reasons as to why zebrafish are a popular choice as an experimental animal model in the field of toxicology.

               https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12951-016-0217-6      

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   References:​

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  1. C. Chakraborty, A. R. Sharma, G. Sharma and S-S. Lee, J Nanobiotechnology, 2016, 14 (1).
     

  2. K. J. Ong, X. Zhao, M. E. Thistle, T. J. MacCormack, R. J. Clark, G. Ma, Y. Martinez-Rubi, B. Simard, J. S. C. Loo, J. G. C. Veinot and G. G. Goss, Nanotoxicology, 2014, 8 (3) 295-304.

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