CuO nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) toxicity in organisms is contributed mainly through the copper uptake by both the ionic and nanoparticle form. However, the relative uptake ratio and bioavailability of the two different forms is not well known due to a lack of sensitive and effective assessment systems. We developed a series of both copper resistant and hyper sensitive Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants to investigate and compare the effects of CuO-NPs and dissolved copper (CuCl₂), on the eukaryote with the purpose of quantitating the relative contributions of nanoparticles and dissolved species for Cu uptake. We observed the toxicity of 10 mM CuO-NPs for copper sensitive strains is equal to that of 0.5 mM CuCl₂ and the main toxic effect is most likely generated from oxidative stress through reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. About 95% CuO-NPs exist in nanoparticle form under neutral environmental conditions. Assessing the cellular metal content of wild type and copper transporter 1(CTR1) knock out cells showed that endocytosis is the major absorption style for CuO-NPs. This study also found a similar toxicity of Ag for both 10 mM Ag-NPs and 0.2 mM AgNO₃ in the copper super sensitive strains. Our study revealed the absorption mechanism of soluble metal based nanomaterials CuO-NPs and Ag-NPs as well as provided a sensitive and delicate system to precisely evaluate the toxicity and stability of nanoparticles.

CuO 纳米颗粒 (CuO-NPs) 在生物体中的毒性主要是通过离子和纳米颗粒形式吸收铜造成的。然而，由于缺乏敏感和有效的评估系统，两种不同形式的相对摄取率和生物利用度并不为人所知。我们开发了一系列抗铜和超敏感酿酒酵母突变体，以研究和比较 CuO-NP 和溶解铜 (CuCl ₂ ) 对真核生物的影响，目的是定量纳米颗粒和溶解物质对 Cu 的相对贡献吸收。我们观察到 10 mM CuO-NPs 对铜敏感菌株的毒性与 0.5 mM CuCl _{2的毒性相同}主要的毒性作用很可能是通过活性氧 (ROS) 的产生而产生的氧化应激。在中性环境条件下，约 95% 的 CuO-NP 以纳米颗粒形式存在。评估野生型和铜转运蛋白 1 ( CTR1 ) 敲除细胞的细胞金属含量表明，内吞作用是 CuO-NP 的主要吸收方式。该研究还发现 Ag 对铜超敏感菌株中的10 mM Ag-NPs 和 0.2 mM AgNO _{3具有相似的毒性。}我们的研究揭示了可溶性金属基纳米材料 CuO-NPs 和 Ag-NPs 的吸收机制，并提供了一个灵敏而精细的系统来精确评估纳米颗粒的毒性和稳定性。