Study of the bioeffects of CdTe quantum dots on Escherichia coli cells

Quantum dots (QDs) hold great potential for applications in nanomedicine, however, only a few studies investigate their toxic- and bio-effects. Using Escherichia coli (E. coli) cells as model, we found that CdTe QDs exhibited a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on cell growth by microcalorimetric technique and optical density (OD(600)). The growth rate constants (k) were determined, which showed that they were related to the concentration of QDs. The mechanism of cytotoxicity of QDs was also studied through the attenuated total reflection-fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectra, fluorescence (FL) polarization, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was clear that the cell out membrane was changed or damaged by the addition of QDs. Taken together, the results indicated that CdTe QDs have cytotoxic effects on E. coli cells, and this effects might attribute to the damaged structure of the cell out membrane, thus QDs and by-products (free radicals, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and free Cd(2+)) which might enter the cells.