Characterization of pulmonary protein profiles in response to zinc oxide nanoparticles in mice: a 24-hour and 28-day follow-up study

Chih-Hong Pan,1,2,* Kai-Jen Chuang,3,4,* Jen-Kun Chen,5 Ta-Chih Hsiao,6 Ching-Huang Lai,2 Tim P Jones,7 Kelly A BéruBé,8 Gui-Bing Hong,9 Kin-Fai Ho,10,11 Hsiao-Chi Chuang12,13 1Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan, 2School of Public Health, National Defense Medical Center, 3School of Public Health, College of Public Health and Nutrition, 4Department of Public Health, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, 5Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Nanomedicine, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, 6Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan, Taiwan; 7School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, 8School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK; 9Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan; 10Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China; 11Shenzhen Municipal Key Laboratory for Health Risk Analysis, Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China; 12School of Respiratory Therapy, College of Medicine, 13Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Although zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) are recognized to cause systemic disorders, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie the time-dependent differences that occur after exposure. The objective of this study was to investigate the mechanistic differences at 24 hours and 28 days after the exposure of BALB/c mice to ZnONPs via intratracheal instillation. An isobaric tag for the relative and absolute quantitation coupled with liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry was used to ide