Fig. 5.

Targeted metabolomic study focusing on amino acids in MCF7 cells with exposure to various NP formulations. (A) Heatmap of intracellular amino acid content in MCF7 cells treated with different formulations. PLS-DA score plot was used to identify the variations of (B) the intracellular metabolomic profile and (C) the extracellular metabolomic profile among the six groups. (D) The pathways were deduced based on the KEGG database and the small molecule pathway database (SMPDB). The arrows denote significant differences (increase or decrease) in amino acid metabolite levels in MCF7 cells exposed to the LJ@Trp-NP treatment compared with control.