Combined toxicity of QD-Cu~(2+) on L02 cells and protective effect of NAC

The oxidative injury of individual QDs or Cu2+ to hepatic cells were both reported,the combined toxicity is concerned due to the co-existence of these two chemicals in human liver.We thus employed human hepatic L02 cells to test the combined toxicity of QDs and Cu2+(lower toxicity) through the cell viability decrease and cell morphology changes,meanwhile,the protective effect of antioxidant reagent NAC was used to evaluate the oxidant injury associated toxicity mechanism.The results showed that both QDs and Cu2+ could decrease the cells viability,and addition of IC10 of QDs could significantly improve Cu2+ induced cell toxicity with cell viability decrease up to 300 %.NAC showed remarkable protective effects with almost identical cell viability and cell morphology compared to the control,indicating the coexistence of lower toxicity of QDs could improve Cu2+ induced L02 cells toxicity,and NAC could effectively decrease QDs-Cu2 induced oxidant injury toxicity.