Table 4. Toxicological effects of metal oxide nanoparticle exposure.
| Comet assay |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material | Particle concentration (mg/m3) | Protein in BAL fluid (μg/mL) | Tail length | % DNA in tail |
| Control | 0 | 146 ± 51 | 21.2 ± 2.6 | 6.0 ± 0.8 |
| ZnO_1 | 6 | 94 ± 22 | – | – |
| 58 | 399 ± 70*** | 27.5 ± 4.6 | 9.9 ± 2.5 | |
| 203 | 371 ± 195** | – | – | |
| ZnO_2 | 4 | 204 ± 102 | 33.3 ± 8 | 10.6 ± 3.3 |
| 26 | 422 ± 179*** | 27.3 ± 6.4 | 8.8 ± 1.7 | |
| 53 | 655 ± 285*** | 23.7 ± 2.9 | 14.2 ± 13.1 | |
| TiO2 | 271 | 234 ± 145 | 39.0 ± 9.5* | 20 ± 8.6* |
| Al2O3 | 23 | – | 22.6 ± 1.9 | 7.4 ± 1.6 |
| 94 | 303 ± 134 | 23.4 ± 4.9 | 8.0 ± 2.7 | |
| 235 | 213 ± 51 | 32.2 ± 7.4 | 11.4 ± 4.8 | |
| CeO2 | 8 | 116 ± 86 | 36.5 ± 9.2 | 19.3 ± 8.5 |
| 30 | 107 ± 71 | 23.1 ± 5.8 | 7.2 ± 2.5 | |
| 152 | 149 ± 65 | 28.4 ± 9.5 | 11.7 ± 6.7 | |
Values are mean ± SD. Statistically significant increases compared to the negative control group are indicated by *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, or ***p ≤ 0.001.