Impact of copper nanoparticles on porcine neutrophils: ultrasensitive characterization factor combining chemiluminescence information and USEtox assessment model

There is a need by the European Commission (EC) regulations, as well as others, to reduce the use of in vivo toxicity tests made on animals. Conventional in vitro tests were designed for non-nanoparticle sized entities, and therefore do not necessarily assess the adverse impacts of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) on humans. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely used methodology for evaluating the environmental performance of products. Nevertheless, the application of LCA on ENPs is difficult because the characterization factors (CFs) of ENPs, as significant input parameters in LCA, remain a major unknown. It is a premise of this study to monitor the chemiluminescence (CL) spectra resulting from the reactive oxygen species (ROS) trigger made from the presence of copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) to porcine neutrophils in vitro, thereby enabling to calculate the porcine and human toxicity CFs. The framework of a scientific consensus model, USEtox model, is selected and the midpoint of CF is set as the inflammation of pig or human. Finally, the present study recommends human and porcine inflammation CFs of CuNPs in Europe to be 1.07 and 2.90 CTU (comparative toxic units) respectively.