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Review
. 2022 May 28;23(11):6074.
doi: 10.3390/ijms23116074.

Food Additive Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles: Dissolution, Interaction, Fate, Cytotoxicity, and Oral Toxicity

Su-Min Youn  1 , Soo-Jin Choi  1
Affiliations
Review

Food Additive Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles: Dissolution, Interaction, Fate, Cytotoxicity, and Oral Toxicity

Su-Min Youn et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Food additive zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) are widely used as a Zn supplement in the food and agriculture industries. However, ZnO NPs are directly added to complex food-matrices and orally taken through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract where diverse matrices are present. Hence, the dissolution properties, interactions with bio- or food-matrices, and the ionic/particle fates of ZnO NPs in foods and under physiological conditions can be critical factors to understand and predict the biological responses and oral toxicity of ZnO NPs. In this review, the solubility of ZnO NPs associated with their fate in foods and the GI fluids, the qualitative and quantitative determination on the interactions between ZnO NPs and bio- or food-matrices, the approaches for the fate determination of ZnO NPs, and the interaction effects on the cytotoxicity and oral toxicity of ZnO NPs are discussed. This information will be useful for a wide range of ZnO applications in the food industry at safe levels.

Keywords: fate; food additive; interaction; oral toxicity; solubility; zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The schematic illustration of the dissolution properties of ZnO NPs effected by environmental pH, the digestion systems used, and the interactions between ZnO and the matrices.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The schematic illustration of the Triton X-114 (TX-114)-based cloud point extraction (CPE) approach for the fate determination of ZnO NPs in commercial foods and biological systems.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The fates of the ZnO NPs in the human intestinal Caco-2 cells, as determined by (A) cloud point extraction (CPE) and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and by (B) a Zn-sensitive fluorescence probe [36]. Different upper case letters (A, B) indicate significant differences between the Zn ions, ZnO, and total Zn in the same incubation time, performed by one-way analysis of variance with Tukey’s test in Statistical Analysis Software (version 9.4) (p < 0.05). Different lower case letters (a, b, c) indicate significant differences between the different incubation times in the same sample (p < 0.05). (C) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and (D) X-ray absorption spectroscopic (XAS) spectra of the tissues after a single dose oral administration of ZnO NPs (20 nm) in rats at 24 h post-administration [68].
Figure 4
Figure 4
The schematic illustration of the cytotoxicity and oral toxicity affected by the physicochemical properties, interactions with bio- or food-matrices, fate, and the solubility of ZnO NPs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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