Association of cellular influences and physical and chemical properties were examined for 24 kinds of industrial metal oxide nanoparticles: ZnO, CuO, NiO, Sb(2)O(3), CoO, MoO(3), Y(2)O(3), MgO, Gd(2)O(3), SnO(2), WO(3), ZrO(2), Fe(2)O(3), TiO(2), CeO(2), Al(2)O(3), Bi(2)O(3), La(2)O(3), ITO, and cobalt blue pigments. We prepared a stable medium dispersion for each nanoparticle and examined the influence on cell viability and oxidative stress together with physical and chemical characterizations. ZnO, CuO, NiO, MgO, and WO(3) showed a large amount of metal ion release in the culture medium. The cellular influences of these soluble nanoparticles were larger than insoluble nanoparticles. TiO(2), SnO(2), and CeO(2) nanoparticles showed strong protein adsorption ability; however, cellular influences of these nanoparticles were small. The primary particle size and the specific surface area seemed unrelated to cellular influences. Cellular influences of metal oxide nanoparticles depended on the kind and concentrations of released metals in the solution. For insoluble nanoparticles, the adsorption property was involved in cellular influences. The primary particle size and specific surface area of metal oxide nanoparticles did not affect directly cellular influences. In conclusion the most important cytotoxic factor of metal oxide nanoparticles was metal ion release.

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Ring polystyrenes (PSs) were synthesized by anionic polymerization technique and purified with preparative size-exclusion chromatography (SEC). Seven ring PSs with their weight-average molecular weight (M w ) ranging from 17k to 570k were prepared and they were confirmed to have high purities all over 96% by liquid chromatography at the chromatographic critical condition (LCCC) analyses. Their radii of gyration (R g s) were determined in benzene-d 6 as a good solvent and in cyclohexane-d 12 or cyclohexane-h 12 as Θ solvents by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) or light scattering (LS). It has been found that R g s of ring polymers are scaled with M w as R g ∝M w 0.60 in a good solvent and as R g ∝M w 0.53 in Θ solvents. Moreover it was confirmed that g factors, R g 2 (Ring) /R g 2 (Linear) , obtained in Θ solvents are meaningfully larger than theoretically predicted values owing to the topological effect stored in ring molecules.

Nickel oxide (NiO) is one of the important industrial materials used in electronic substrates and for ceramic engineering. Advancements in industrial technology have enabled the manufacture of ultrafine NiO particles. On the other hand, it is well-known that nickel compounds exert toxic effects. The toxicity of nickel compounds is mainly caused by nickel ions (Ni(2+)). However, the ion release properties of ultrafine NiO particles are still unclear. In the present study, the influences of ultrafine NiO particles on cell viability were examined in vitro to obtain fundamental data for the biological effects of ultrafine green NiO and ultrafine black NiO. Ultrafine NiO particles showed higher cytotoxicities toward human keratinocyte HaCaT cells and human lung carcinoma A549 cells than fine NiO particles and also showed higher solubilities in culture medium (Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum) than fine NiO particles. In particular, the concentration of Ni(2+) released into the culture medium by ultrafine green NiO was 150-fold higher than that released by fine green NiO. The concentrations of Ni(2+) released by both types of NiO particles in an aqueous solution containing amino acids were remarkably higher than those released by NiO particles in water. Moreover, we prepared a uniform and stable dispersion of ultrafine black NiO in culture medium and examined its influence on cell viability in comparison with that of NiCl(2), a soluble nickel compound. A medium exchange after 6 h of exposure resulted in a loss of cytotoxicity in the cells exposed to NiCl(2), whereas cytotoxicity was retained in the cells exposed to NiO. Transmission electron microscope observations revealed uptake of both ultrafine and fine NiO particles into HaCaT cells. Taken together, the present results suggest that the intracellular Ni(2+) release could be an important factor that determines the cytotoxicity of NiO. Ultrafine NiO is more cytotoxic than fine NiO in vitro.

A practical guide to experimental conditions such as statistical variation of signal intensity on quantitative solution state nuclear magnetic resonanace (NMR) analysis is discussed and presented. Statistical analysis showed that there is a relationship between a targeted precision and practical pulse intervals. The bandwidth of the audio filter needs to be set so that all the signals of interest fall into 80% of the centre part of the filter. When fulfilling these conditions, the relative standard deviation (RSD) of a signal area in repeated experiments can be estimated by determining the signal-to-noise ratio (SN) of a single spectrum. When the SN reached 1000, the RSD became constant with increasing SN. With such a condition, accuracy better than 1% should be obtained with quantitative NMR.