Fig. 4

Addressing QD toxicity and future directions. a) Schematic and summary of three proposed types of non-traditional therapeutic, adjuvant, and countermeasure nanoparticles. QD therapeutics (top) using superoxide generation; Nano-immunotherapy (middle) using 20–50 nm benign nanorods to trigger an immune response; and a countermeasure (bottom) using large or small benign nanoparticles coordinated with Fe-S to serve as a host-specific nano-antioxidant. b) Depiction of host-specific protection using the larger nanoparticles coated with [Fe-S] clusters as countermeasures against the superoxide ROS stress from QD therapeutic. c) Depiction of probiotic-specific protection using transcriptomic/proteomic targeting with countermeasure nanoparticles