Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have emerging applications in biomedicine and the industry. Exposure to AuNPs has previously been shown to alter the transcriptional activity of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB), which is known to mediate physiological and pathological processes. This study seeks to provide mechanistic insights into AuNP-induced NF-kB activation in Small Airway Epithelial Cells (SAECs) in vitro. Increased NF-kB transcriptional activity (quantified by the luciferase reporter assay) was observed in AuNP-treated SAECs. Transcriptomic analysis revealed differential expression of 42 genes, which regulate functional processes that include cellular response to stimulus, chemicals, stress and immune response. Notably, the gene expression of serum amyloid A1 (SAA1), an acute phase protein and Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) were found to be up-regulated. As TLR2 is known to be a functional receptor of SAA1, a co-immunoprecipitation assay was performed. SAA1 was observed to be co-immunoprecipitated with the TLR2 protein and this protein-protein interaction was further supported by in silico computer based protein modeling. The present study suggests that AuNPs may potentially induce SAA1-TLR2-mediated NF-kB transcription factor activation in lung epithelial cells, highlighting that nano-bio interactionscould result in biological effects that may affect cells.

金纳米颗粒（AuNPs）在生物医学和工业中正在出现新的应用。暴露于的AuNP先前已经显示出改变核因子kappa B（NF-的转录活性ķ B），这是已知介导生理和病理过程。这项研究的目的是提供机械见解的AuNP-诱导的NF ķ乙活化在小气道上皮细胞（SAECs中）在体外。NF- k增加在AuNP处理的SAEC中观察到B转录活性（通过荧光素酶报告基因分析定量）。转录组学分析揭示了42个基因的差异表达，这些基因调节功能过程，包括细胞对刺激，化学物质，应激和免疫反应的反应。值得注意的是，发现血清淀粉样蛋白A1（SAA1），急性期蛋白和Toll样受体2（TLR2）的基因表达上调。由于已知TLR2是SAA1的功能受体，因此进行了免疫共沉淀测定。观察SAA1被共免疫沉淀与TLR2蛋白，并进一步支持了这一蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用通过在硅片计算机基于蛋白质建模。本研究表明AuNPs可能诱导SAA1-TLR2介导的NF- k肺上皮细胞中的B转录因子激活，突出表明纳米生物相互作用可能导致可能影响细胞的生物学效应。