Towards the development of a high throughput screening approach for Mytilus edulis hemocytes: A case study on silicon-based nanomaterials.

To have an understanding of potential mechanistic effects, sublethal endpoints able to discriminate between nanomaterials with similar physical and chemical features need to be used. In this sense, quantitative PCR was used to measure a battery of genes linked to a wide array of different cellular processes. Gene expression was measured in Mytilus edulis hemocytes following an in vitro and in vivo exposure to pure silicon (40 nm) and carbon-coated silicon (40 and 75 nm) after 24 h. Partial least squares discriminant analysis and correlation analysis were used to develop an integrative model, describing the relationship between genes, to identify which genes were important in describing responses to engineered nanomaterial exposure. The results suggested that some discriminations could be made based on the presence of a carbon coating or the alteration of size which could inform industrial patterns on ways to reduce the ecotoxicological impact of their product. The results also indicate that HTS on Mytilus hemocytes may be integrated into a safer-by-design approach but additional characterization of nanomaterial behavior in media is required to determine if it is a suitable alternative to in vivo testing.