Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
EDAX, USA). That equipment allows spotting inorganic foreign bodies and ana-
lyzing their elemental composition in biopsic, autoptic and surgical samples or in
the blood and in other body fluids.
5.2 The Nano-bio-interactions
In 2002, a new word was coined: Nanopathology, and that name was used as the
title of a Project (Nanopathology FP5-QOL-2002-147) coordinated by
Dr. Antonietta Gatti, one of the authors of this chapter. She worked in collaboration
with the Universities of Cambridge (UK) and Mainz (Germany), Biomatech
(France) and with FEI Company (The Netherlands). The project
s goal was to
realize the “impact of micro and nanoparticle in inducing pathologies.” At the
beginning the word had a simple meaning: “The branch of learning that deals with
how the organism reacts to the presence of micro- and nanoparticles.” Now, after
years of study and research, the word has taken on other aspects and implications
and probably, in the next future, Nanopathology will mean a new approach to
patients and their symptoms as a whole with the environment where he lives: a sort
of customized or Personalized Medicine.
The respiratory and gastrointestinal tract have at their disposal several mecha-
nisms to keep the mucosal surfaces free from dead cell debris and particles
deposited by respiration [
5
,
6
]. However, the physiological barriers of the pulmo-
nary and gastrointestinal mucosa may prove ineffective to prevent solid micro- and
nano-sized particles from entering the organism. Direct observations in patholog-
ical samples directly demonstrated the presence of particulate inorganic matter (like
dust, burnt oil residues or asbestos, etc.) [
7
-
9
].
The images presented in Figs.
5.1
,
5.2
,
5.3
,
5.4
,
5.5
,
5.6
,
5.7
,
5.8
,
5.9
,
5.10
,
5.11
,
and
5.12
show these particulate matter deeply embedded in biological tissues. They
concern the presence of debris of different chemistry in the lungs (Fig.
5.1a, c
)
affected by adenocarcinoma or by mesothelioma (Fig.
5.4a, c
), in the liver
(Figs.
5.2
and
5.3
), in the stomach affected by cancer (Fig.
5.5
), in the pancreas
affected by cancer (Fig.
5.7
), in the colon (Fig.
5.6
), in the kidneys (Fig.
5.8
), in the
brain (Figs.
5.9
and
5.10
) and also in the seminal fluid (Fig.
5.11
). These images
witness the particle invasive character.
Micro- and nanoparticles share some features of their physical behavior with
gases and, like gases, can be inhaled, reaching, when they are small enough as is the
case with nanoparticles, as deep as the alveoli. According to a research carried out
by the University of Leuven (Belgium) [
10
] on 100-nm-sized particulate matter, it
takes it no longer than a few tens of seconds to pass from the alveoli to the blood
stream. If those particles are insoluble, they may act as a trigger to the transforma-
tion of fibrinogen into fibrin, the insoluble serum protein that is a sort of scaffold on
which a thrombus forms. In most cases the organism can counter that process by
producing urokinase, the serine protease that works as a plasminogen activator, and
quickly dissolve the thrombus; but there are instances in which, for a number of
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