Unraveling the molecular mechanism of photosynthetic toxicity of highly fluorescent silver nanoclusters to Scenedesmus obliquus.

ABSTRACT: While the discovery of numerous attractive properties of silver at the nanoscale has increased their demand in many sectors including medicine, optics, sensing, painting and cosmetics, it has also raised wide public concerns about their effect on living organisms in aquatic environment. Despite the continuous effort to understand the various aspects of the toxicity of silver nanomaterials, the molecular level understanding on their cytotoxicity mechanism to biological organisms has remained unclear. Herein, we demonstrated the underlying mechanism of the photosynthetic toxicity against green algae namely, Scenedesmus obliquus by using an emerging silver nanomaterial, called silver nanoclusters (defined as r-Ag NCs). By exploiting the unique fluorescence properties of r-Ag NCs along with va

SUBMITTER: Zhang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5703894 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature