Hpaepic cell line

Five human tumor cell lines, obtained from the European Collection of Cell Culture, were used in this study, namely A375-C5 derived from melanoma, MCF-7 derived from breast adenocarcinoma, NCI-H460 derived from non-small cell lung adenocarcinoma, and HCT-15 and Caco-2 derived from colorectal carcinoma. The HPAEpic cell line (Human Pulmonary Alveolar Epithelial Cells) was also included in the screening assays and was obtained from ScienCell Research Laboratories. All cell lines were maintained at 37 °C in a 5% CO₂ humidified incubator, and all experiments were performed when exponentially growing cells presented more than 95% viability. A375-C5, MCF-7, and NCI-H460 were grown in RPMI-1640 culture medium (Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Biochrom, Cambridge, UK), supplemented with 5% heat-inactivated FBS (fetal bovine serum, Biochrom) and 1% of penicillin/streptomycin (Sigma-Aldrich, Lisboa, Portugal). HCT-15 cells were also cultured in the same medium but supplemented with 10% FBS. HPAEpic cells were cultivated in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM, Lonza, Walkersville, MO, USA), supplemented with 10% FBS, 1% Non-Essential Amino Acids (NEAAs, Sigma-Aldrich, Lisboa, Portugal), and 1% penicillin/streptomycin.

BEAS-2B cell line was supplied by the American Type Culture Collection (Manassas, VA, USA) and HPAEpiC cell line was from ScienCell Research Laboratories (San Diego, CA, USA). BEAS-2B cells and HPAEpiC cells were grown in DMEM and an RPMI-1640 medium, respectively, containing 10% fetal bovine serum (Hyclone, Logan, UT, USA) and 1% penicillin-streptomycin antibiotics (Gibco, Waltham, MA, USA). The stock of unmodified polystyrene nanoparticles (PS-NPs) with a size of 40 nm was supplied by Shanghai Huge Biotechnology Corporation (Shanghai, China). The characterization of the PS-NPs was evaluated as previously described [27 (link)]. Before exposure to cells, the PS-NPs were treated by ultrasonication to avoid aggregation. The PS-NPs were diluted using a serum-free medium to the corresponding concentrations and exposed to the treated cells.

Cells were grown and maintained as described^{34 (link)}. NCI-H460 (human non-small cell lung cancer) cells were grown in RPMI-1640 culture medium (Lonza, Basel, Switzerland) with 5% FBS. HPAEpiC (human pulmonary alveolar epithelial cells), A549 (human adenocarcinoma alveolar basal epithelial), and Calu-3 (human lung adenocarcinoma) cells were grown in DMEM medium with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS, Biochrom) and 1% non-essential amino acids (Sigma Aldrich Co., Saint Louis, MO, USA). Cells were maintained in a 5% CO₂ humidified incubator, at 37 °C. The experiments were performed when cells were at exponentially growing and presented more than 95% viability. The NCI-H460, A549, and Calu-3 cell lines were obtained from American Type Culture Collection. HPAEpiC cell line was purchased from ScienCell Research Laboratories.