Pregnancy exposure of titanium dioxide nanoparticles causes intestinal dysbiosis and neurobehavioral impairments that are not significant postnatally but emerge in adulthood of offspring

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy exposure to titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO(2)NPs) is a vital consideration due to their inadvertent ingestion from environmental contamination. The potential health effects of TiO(2)NPs on the neurodevelopmental process should be seriously concerned in health risk assessment, especially for the pregnant women who are susceptible to the neurodevelopmental toxicity of nano-sized particles. However, the available evidence of neurodevelopmental toxicity of TiO(2)NPs remains very limited. METHODS: In the present study, the pregnant mice were intragastric administered with 150 mg/kg TiO(2)NPs from gestational day (GD) 8 to 21, the maternal behaviors and neurodevelopment-related indicators in offspring were all assessed at different time points after delivery. The gut microbial community in both dams and their offspring were detected by using 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing. The gut-brain axis related indicators were also determined in the offspring. RESULTS: The results clearly demonstrated that exposure to TiO(2)NPs did not affect the maternal behaviors of pregnant mice, or cause the deficits on the developmental milestones and perturbations in the early postnatal development of offspring. Intriguingly, our data revealed that pregnancy exposure of TiO(2)NPs did not affect locomotor function, learning and memory ability and anxiety-like behavior in offspring at postnatal day (PD) 21, but resulted in obvious impairments on these neurobehaviors at PD49. Similar phenomena were obtained in the composition of gut microbial community, intestinal and brain pathological damage in offspring in adulthood. Moreover, the intestinal dysbiosis induced by TiO(2)NPs might be highly associated with the delayed appearance of neurobehavioral impairments in offspring, possibly occurring through disruption of gut-brain axis. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report elucidated that pregnancy exposure to TiO(2)NPs caused delayed appearance of neurobehavioral impairments in offspring when they reached adulthood, although these perturbations did not happen at early life after delivery. These findings will provide valuable insights about neurodevelopmental toxicity of TiO(2)NPs, and call for comprehensive health risk assessment of TiO(2)NPs on the susceptible population, such as pregnant women. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-021-00967-5.