Nanotoxicity: Biomimicry 3D Gastrointestinal Spheroid Platform for the Assessment of Toxicity and Inflammatory Effects of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles (Small 6/2015)

Nanosafety tests using 3D cell spheroid cultures illustrate an “onion-layering” toxicity phenomenon. D. T. Leong and co-workers observe how the outer layers of cells serve as sacrificial for the entrapment of nanomaterials. On page 702, this 3D-only characteristic confines the toxic effects of nanomaterials such as inflammatory response to within the outermost exposed layers. However, these protective layers also peel off, exposing the new outer layers to toxic stress in a step-wise fashion. This suggests that studies need to be in more physio-mimetic to understand the often oversimplified nanobiology that occurs.