Mechanism of toxicity of aluminium-based adjuvant (ABA) nanomaterials

人们对人体暴露于所谓的纳米颗粒的兴趣日益浓厚。很明显，亚微米大小的颗粒能够进入人体，并可能积聚在组织和器官中。这些纳米材料既是为无数目的而开发的新型材料，也是作为自然和人为现象的产物“自然”存在于许多不同环境中的材料。虽然有证据表明这种纳米材料正变得越来越普遍，但同样清楚的是，我们对它们潜在的毒性模式知之甚少。实际上，一种纳米材料已经被人类使用了几十年，那就是铝基佐剂，大约80%的人类疫苗都使用了这种佐剂。虽然这些材料具有高度的生物活性，但我们仍然不完全了解它们是如何工作的，我们相信它们将是一个非常有用的模型系统，用于理解纳米材料的毒性。我们的研究目标是全面了解这些纳米材料的物理和化学特性，然后研究这些特性如何影响它们的生物反应性。我们希望解释它们作为佐剂是如何起作用的，这样我们将有助于设计未来安全有效的佐剂材料。此外，我们希望优化这些材料的毒性，这样它们就可以用来杀死恶性脑癌病例中的肿瘤细胞。如果不了解这些纳米材料的毒性作用机制，这些目标都无法实现，这是本研究的主要目标。

There is a burgeoning interest in human exposure to what have been called nanoparticulates. It has becomeapparent that sub-micron sized particles are able to enter the body and potentially accumulate in tissues andorgans. These nanomaterials are both novel materials which are being developed for myriad purposes andthey are materials which are 'naturally' present in many different environments as the products of bothnatural and man-made phenomena. While there is evidence that such nanomaterials are becoming morewidespread it is also clear that we understand very little about their potential modes of toxicity. Actually onesuch form of nanomaterial has been used by humans for decades and are the aluminium-based adjuvantswhich are used in approximately 80% of all human vaccinations. While these materials are highly biologicallyreactive we still do not understand fully how they work and we believe that they would be an extremelyuseful model system for understanding the toxicity of nanomaterials. The objectives of our research are toobtain a thorough understanding of the physical and chemical properties of these nanomaterials and theninvestigate how these influence their biological reactivity. We hope to explain how they work as adjuvantsand in doing so we will help in the design of future safe and effective adjuvant materials. In addition we arehoping to optimise the toxicity of such materials such that they might be used to kill tumour cells in cases ofmalignant brain cancer. None of these objectives can be achieved without an understanding of themechanisms of toxic action of these nanomaterials and this is the primary objective of this research.