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Caenorhabditis elegans as a Prediction Platform for Nanotechnology-Based Strategies: Insights on Analytical Challenges
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This review examines the use of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for evaluating the safety and toxicity of nanotechnology-based materials, including nanoplastics. Researchers highlight the advantages of C. elegans for toxicological screening, including its transparency, genetic tractability, and fast response to environmental contaminants. The study suggests that C. elegans is a valuable platform for assessing the impacts of emerging pollutants like nanoplastics and nanopesticides from a holistic health perspective.
Nanotechnology-based strategies have played a pivotal role in innovative products in different technological fields, including medicine, agriculture, and engineering. The redesign of the nanometric scale has improved drug targeting and delivery, diagnosis, water treatment, and analytical methods. Although efficiency brings benefits, toxicity in organisms and the environment is a concern, particularly in light of global climate change and plastic disposal in the environment. Therefore, to measure such effects, alternative models enable the assessment of impacts on both functional properties and toxicity. Caenorhabditis elegans is a nematode model that poses valuable advantages such as transparency, sensibility in responding to exogenous compounds, fast response to perturbations besides the possibility to replicate human disease through transgenics. Herein, we discuss the applications of C. elegans to nanomaterial safety and efficacy evaluations from one health perspective. We also highlight the directions for developing appropriate techniques to safely adopt magnetic and organic nanoparticles, and carbon nanosystems. A description was given of the specifics of targeting and treatment, especially for health purposes. Finally, we discuss C. elegans potential for studying the impacts caused by nanopesticides and nanoplastics as emerging contaminants, pointing out gaps in environmental studies related to toxicity, analytical methods, and future directions.
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