Identification of circular RNAs expression pattern in caprine fetal fibroblast cells exposed to a chronic non-cytotoxic dose of graphene oxide-silver nanoparticle nanocomposites

Yu-Guo Yuan; Yi-Tian Xing; Song-Zi Liu; Ling Li; Abu Musa Md Talimur Reza; He-Qing Cai; Jia-Lin Wang; Pengfei Wu; Ping Zhong; Il-Keun Kong

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1090814

Identification of circular RNAs expression pattern in caprine fetal fibroblast cells exposed to a chronic non-cytotoxic dose of graphene oxide-silver nanoparticle nanocomposites

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Mar 16:11:1090814. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1090814. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yu-Guo Yuan^{1

2}, Yi-Tian Xing¹, Song-Zi Liu¹, Ling Li^{1

2}, Abu Musa Md Talimur Reza³, He-Qing Cai^{1

2}, Jia-Lin Wang^{1

2}, Pengfei Wu¹, Ping Zhong¹, Il-Keun Kong⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Veterinary Medicine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
² Jiangsu Co-Innovation Center of Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
³ Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Gebze Technical University, Gebze, Kocaeli, Türkiye.
⁴ Division of Applied Life Science (BK21 Four), Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Gyeongnam, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

The widespread use of graphene oxide-silver nanoparticle nanocomposites (GO-AgNPs) in biomedical sciences is increasing the chances of human and animal exposure to its chronic non-toxic doses. Exposure to AgNPs-related nanomaterials may result in the negative effect on the dam, fetus and offspring. However, there are only little available information for profound understanding of the epigenetic alteration in the cells and animals caused by low-dose chronic exposure of GO-AgNPs. The present study investigated the effect of 0.5 μg/mL GO-AgNPs for 10 weeks on the differential expression of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in caprine fetal fibroblast cells (CFFCs), and this dose of GO-AgNPs did not affect cell viability and ROS level. We predicted the functions of those differentially expressed (DE) circRNAs in CFFCs by bioinformatics analysis. Furthermore, we validated the expression of ten DE circRNAs using quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to ensure the reliability of the sequencing data. Our results showed that the DE circRNAs may potentially regulate the GO-AgNPs-inducing epigenetic toxicity through a regulatory network consisted of circRNAs, miRNAs and messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Therefore, the epigenetics toxicity is essential to assess the biosafety level of GO-AgNPs.

Keywords: caprine fetal fibroblast cells; circRNA; nanotoxicity; reduced graphene oxide; silver nanoparticles.

Grants and funding

This project was partly funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), development of a new precise cytosine base editor (JBGS[2021]025), the 111 Project D18007, Yangzhou city and Yangzhou University corporation (YZ2021161) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (Grant No. NRF 2020R1A2C2006614/2020-IT-RD-0193-01-101, RS-2023-00208894).