Figure 6. Trophic transfer of nTiO₂ in Paramecium relative to E. coli.

(a) A statistically significant (p < 0.05) increase in the cellular granularity of Paramecium cells fed with nTiO₂-contaminated E. coli as determined by flow cytometry. (b–f) Trophic transfer of nTiO₂ further confirmed by bright field microscopy: (b,c) controls at 1 and 24 h, (d–f) 50 μg/ml-treated cells captured at 1, 7 and 24 h. (All bright field microscopy images were captured at 200x magnification). Values represented are the mean ± SE of the three independent experiments. *p < 0.05 was considered significant compared with control.