纳米颗粒展示了在有效药物递送方面的潜在应用，可以避免免疫和肾脏清除、机械和酶的破坏等生物干扰。然而，一些研究论文对镉镓硫化量子点（CdTe-QDs）等金属基纳米颗粒在生物医学应用中的细胞毒性、基因毒性和致癌潜能提出了质疑。在本研究中，我们研究了CdTe-QD NPs对肝细胞癌（Huh-7）细胞系的基因表达谱的影响。将Huh-7细胞经CdTe-QD NPs处理（10 μg/ml，处理时间分别为6、12和24小时，以及25 μg/ml，处理时间分别为6和12小时），利用微阵列进行转录组分析，评估全局基因表达谱。在不同时间点，CdTe-QD NPs的两个剂量（10和25 μg/ml）均观察到差异表达基因（DEGs）。基因本体（GO）分析显示，涉及细胞周期、组织损伤和异常、细胞死亡和存活、基因表达、癌症、有机体存活和细胞发育的基因差异表达。总体而言，我们证明了涉及维持细胞存活、代谢和基因组完整性的多个基因的差异表达。这些发现得到了一些典型通路基因的RT-qPCR研究的证实，表明有可能涉及纳米颗粒毒性介导的细胞存活和细胞死亡抑制。© 作者 2023。

Nanoparticles have shown promising potential for efficient drug delivery, circumventing biological interferences like immunological and renal clearance and mechanical and enzymatic destruction. However, a handful of research papers have questioned the biomedical use of metal-based nanoparticles like cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe-QDs) for their cytotoxic, genotoxic, and carcinogenic potential. Herein, we examined the effects of CdTe-QD NPs on gene expression profile of hepatocellular carcinoma (Huh-7) cell line. Huh-7 cells were treated with CdTe-QD NPs (10 μg/ml for 6, 12, and 24 hours, and 25 μg/ml for 6 and 12 hours), and transcriptomic analysis was performed using microarray to evaluate the global gene expression profile. Differential expressed genes (DEGs) were observed for both the doses (10 and 25 μg/ml) of CdTe-QD NPs at different time points. Gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed that genes involved in molecular function of cell cycle, organizational injury and abnormalities, cell death and survival, gene expression, cancer, organismal survival, and cellular development were differentially expressed. Overall, we have demonstrated differential expression of several genes, involved in maintaining cell survival, metabolism, and genome integrity. These findings were confirmed by RT-qPCR study for some canonical pathway genes signifying possible implication in NP toxicity-mediated cell survival and inhibition of cell death.© The Author(s) 2023.