Effects of Engineered Carbon and Silver Nanoparticles on Gene Expression in Plutellaxylostella to Assess Toxicity

The effect of pure single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on expression of CYP6BG1 was investigated in fourth in star of diamondback moth, Plutellaxylostella (DBM) larvae. To date there has been very little understanding of the effects of SWCNTs and Ag NPs on gene expression in insects; particularly on DBM.DBM is model organism for toxicity research because of its known resistance and sequenced genome. We investigated the effects of 138.24 µg/ml SWCNTs and 4.32 µg/ml and 8.64 µg/ml Ag NPs using artificial food. Control feed were prepared using distilled water. We measured the CYP6BG1 expression with Real-time PCR. CYP6BG1 was up regulated for 138.24 µg/ml SWCNTs and 4.32 µg/ml and 8.64 µg/ml Ag NPs compared to control. Our results suggest that DBM have very strong immunity and CYP P450 family potentially helps insects to metabolize toxic ENPs. De novo expression profile analysis due to ENPs exposure to DBM is now suggested to be required for ENP toxicity studies.

Keywords: Plutellaxylostella, Engineered nanoparticles, Insects, Single-walled carbon nanotubes, Silver nanoparticles, Gene expression, Toxicity.