Assessment of Cellular Responses after Short- and Long-Term Exposure to Silver Nanoparticles in Human Neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) and Astrocytoma (D384) Cells
Figure 4
Clonogenic assay up to 10-day exposure. The images of randomly selected microscopic fields show the colonies of SH-SY5Y (a), D384 (b), and A549 (c) cells formed after 7 or 10 consecutive days of exposure to increasing concentration of AgNPs (0.5–25 μg/mL). The colonies of all cell types treated with AgNPs showed dose-dependent reductions on size, colony number, and changes in colony morphology compared to each respective control (scale bar is 600 μm). Panel (d) shows a semiquantitative analysis in SH-SY5Y, D384, and A549 cell lines: histograms display the number of colonies formed after 7 or 10 consecutive days of exposure to increasing concentration of AgNPs (0.5–25 μg/mL). Dose-dependent inhibition of colony formation from all cell models was observed, in particular cell sensitivity was SH-SY5Y > A549 > D384. Decrease in SH-SY5Y and D384 colony number was 50% and 25%, respectively, at 1 μg/mL, and exposure to even lower AgNP dose, such as 0.5 μg/mL, was significantly effective towards SH-SY5Y and pulmonary cells. Data are expressed as percentage of respective control colonies. Error bars are ±S.D. *Significant decrease of colony number: different from control (), statistical analysis by ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test.
