Researchers in France investigated the impact of a daily ration of food containing gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) of two sizes on zebrafish. The zebrafish were given very low doses – from 36 to 106 nanograms of gold per fish per day. They found that AuNP exposure resulted in various dysfunctions at the sub cellular scale, including alteration of genome composition, and the modulation of the expression of genes involved in DNA repair, detoxification processes, apoptosis, mitochondrial metabolism and oxidative stress. The level of AuNP concentration in food, the AuNP size and the exposure duration modulated the observed adverse effects. The abstract, and a link to the full article, can be viewed online at the link below.
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17435390.2011.562328