Volume 16, Issue 22 2001371
Full Paper

Black Phosphorus Quantum Dots Cause Nephrotoxicity in Organoids, Mice, and Human Cells

Chengyong He

Corresponding Author

Chengyong He

State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 China

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
Fengkai Ruan

Fengkai Ruan

State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 China

State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361102 China

Search for more papers by this author
Shengwei Jiang

Shengwei Jiang

Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055 China

Search for more papers by this author
Jie Zeng

Jie Zeng

State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 China

Search for more papers by this author
Hanying Yin

Hanying Yin

State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 China

Search for more papers by this author
Rong Liu

Rong Liu

State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361102 China

Search for more papers by this author
Yongxing Zhang

Yongxing Zhang

State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361102 China

Search for more papers by this author
Laiqiang Huang

Laiqiang Huang

Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055 China

Search for more papers by this author
Chonggang Wang

Chonggang Wang

State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 China

Search for more papers by this author
Shaohua Ma

Corresponding Author

Shaohua Ma

Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055 China

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
Zhenghong Zuo

Corresponding Author

Zhenghong Zuo

State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005 China

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 27 April 2020
Citations: 71

Abstract

Quantum dots (QDs) have numerous potential applications in lighting, engineering, and biomedicine. QDs are mainly excreted through the kidney due to their ultrasmall sizes; thus, the kidneys are target organs of QD toxicity. Here, an organoid screening platform is established and used to study the nephrotoxicity of QDs. Organoids are templated from monodisperse microfluidic Matrigel droplets and found to be homogeneous in both tissue structure and functional recapitulation within a population and suitable for the quantitative screening of toxic doses. Kidney organoids are proved displaying higher sensitivity than 2D-cultured cell lines. Similar to metal-containing QDs, black phosphorus (BP)-QDs are found to have moderate toxicity in the kidney organoids. The nephrotoxicity of BP-QDs are validated in both mice and human renal tubular epithelial cells. BP-QDs are also found to cause insulin insensitivity and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in the kidney. Furthermore, ER stress-related IRE1α signaling is shown to mediate renal toxicity and insulin insensitivity caused by BP-QDs. In summary, this work demonstrates the use of constructed kidney organoids as 3D high-throughput screening tools to assess nanosafety and further illuminates the effects and molecular mechanisms of BP-QD nephrotoxicity. The findings will hopefully enable improvement of the safety of BP-QD applications.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.