A pilot toxicology study of single-walled carbon nanotubes in a small sample of mice

Top Cited Papers
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Single-walled carbon nanotubes are currently under evaluation in biomedical applications, including in vivo delivery1,2,3 of drugs4, proteins, peptides5,6,7 and nucleic acids8,9 (for gene transfer10 or gene silencing11), in vivo tumour imaging12 and tumour targeting of single-walled carbon nanotubes as an anti-neoplastic treatment5. However, concerns about the potential toxicity of single-walled carbon nanotubes have been raised13,14. Here we examine the acute and chronic toxicity of functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes when injected into the bloodstream of mice. Survival, clinical and laboratory parameters reveal no evidence of toxicity over 4 months. Upon killing, careful necropsy and tissue histology show age-related changes only. Histology and Raman microscopic mapping demonstrate that functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes persisted within liver and spleen macrophages for 4 months without apparent toxicity. Although this is a preliminary study with a small group of animals, our results encourage further confirmation studies with larger groups of animals.

This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit: