ABSTRACT
During the last decade, a large body of literature regarding environmental nanotoxicology has been published. A detailed review revealed that the predominant share of papers relate to bacteria and cell cultures, while significantly less data is available for other organisms. Further testing should be aimed particularly at missing environmental compartments, such as estuarine and terrestrial environments. The main conclusions from existing nanotoxicity studies are: (i) the dissolution of metal or metal oxide nanomaterials plays a very important role in their adverse effects, (ii) in some cases, it has been proven that particulate fraction causes specific effects not related to ions, (iii) surface modifications, such as coating and charge, alter the toxic potential of nanomaterials, (iv) the properties of nanomaterials are altered upon contact with the test medium and the test organism, (v) some materials (zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, and fullerenes) are phototoxic, and (vi) some (titanium dioxide, cerium oxide, and carbon nanomaterials) have a high adsorption potential for biological surfaces. At the moment, it is not clear how to approach identifying the hazards of nanomaterials. So far, it has been found that toxicity data is highly uncertain and often unstructured and that a number of proposals on how to best adapt the existing testing methodology to suit nanomaterials have been given. Our current priority in nanotoxicity evaluation should be the use of harmonized or standardized protocols for testing.
