Caenorhabditis elegans as a tool for nano-bio-interactions
Daniela UCCELLETTI (Sapienza Università di Roma)
ABSTRACT
A great interest is now focused on nanomedicine techniques, such as drug screening, imaging, diagnosis and therapeutic agents targeting into cellular compartments, tissues, and organs by using nanoparticulate carriers. Moreover, because of their different physicochemical properties, nanomaterials can interact with biological macromolecules within the human body. As a consequence, the ever-growing need of toxicity assessment and adverse health effects evaluation has driven the attention on how to study nano-bio-interactions.
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans represents a useful model to figure out the interactions of engineered nanoparticles with multicellular organisms. Its experimental potential offers a system best suited for asking in vivo questions without ethical issues. A wide variety of human microbial pathogens have been shown to infect and kill this nematode, making possible the in vivo assessment of nanomaterial antimicrobial properties.
It will be discussed the toxicity evaluation and antimicrobial potential of nanomaterials, including Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs), exploiting the in vivo model C. elegans.
