Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Model organism to evaluate nanoparticle toxicity

Emergence of nanotechnology field in biomedicine advised researchers to investigate the toxicity of nanosized particles. The interactions between metals and microorganisms are always a subject of interest in the last few decades owing to their possible transfer of stored metals to higher organisms. The toxicological impacts of nanoparticles on microbial metabolism and growth have always been the subject of interest for researchers. Several nanomaterials such as metal and metal oxide nanoparticles and carbon materials were screened for their potential applications in the biomedical field. Even though nanoparticles have widespread applications in the field of biology and medicine, there is a serious impact of nanomaterials on human health and environment. There are nanoparticles with huge toxicity as they can pass through biological membranes affecting the physiology of the cell. Potential hazards of nanoparticles are much more wide and diverse on plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates than microorganisms. Yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a prominent and highly informative biological model among all in vitro models to evaluate the toxicity of different nanoparticles. It is also important to evaluate the toxicity of nanoparticles using model organism such as S. cerevisiae for the possible applications in different fields. Toxicological effects of nanoparticles vary depending on the size, chemical nature, and surface chemistry of particles. S. cerevisiae and its gene deletion mutant collections are successfully employed as a model to evaluate nanoparticle toxicity owing to their ability to reveal cellular toxicity and detoxification mechanism of nanoparticles. This will further add valuable information for testing the potential of emerging scope of nanoparticle world.