Investigating the Biological Effect of Multidimensional Ti3C2 (MXene)-Based Nanomaterials through a Metabolomics Approach: a Multidimensional-Determined Alteration in Energy Metabolism

Multidimensional Ti3C2(MXene)-based nanoma-terials (m-MBNs, including nanosheets and quantum dots (QDs))are vitally important transition-metal carbides or carbonitrides withdramatic photothermal activity in cancer therapy in animal modelsand display potential prospects for practical application. However,detailed bioinformation on multidimensional-induced variations inbiocompatibility, metabolic processes, and mechanisms is in-sufficient. Metabolomics profiling has provided a distinguishedalternative with massive bioinformation, which has shed light onthe biological response of an organism under exogenous stimuli atthe molecular level. In this work, m-MBNs were selected to interactwith human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), amongwhich a metabolomics approach was applied to explore the changes in the HUVECs metabolome. The spatial distribution ofmetabolites was screened by desorption electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI). The results revealed thatnonobvious acute cytotoxicity was observed by cell proliferation and apoptosis assays. Comparatively, m-MBNs induced changes inthe energy metabolism-related cellular events of HUVECs, while MXene QDs induced significant variation in cell metabolism, whichwas correlated with the multidimensional-determined mitochondria dysfunction. This work has the potential to evaluatemetabolomic changes as a result of exposure to m-MBNs for assessing the biological effect of nanomaterials at the micro level.Moreover, such metabolomics-based profiling could also provide a biological forward expectation of these nanomaterials in futurebiomedical applications