Characterization and Cellular Internalization of Spherical Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNC) into Normal and Cancerous Fibroblasts

Abstract

The aim was to isolate cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from commercialized oil palm empty fruit bunch cellulose nanofibre (CNF) through sulphuric acid hydrolysis and explore its safeness as a potential nanocarrier. Successful extraction of CNC was confirmed through a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and attenuated total reflection Fourier transmission infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectrometry analysis. For subsequent cellular uptake study, the spherical CNC was covalently tagged with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC), resulting in negative charged FITC-CNC nanospheres with a dispersity (Ð) of 0.371. MTT assay revealed low degree cytotoxicity for both CNC and FITC-CNC against C6 rat glioma and NIH3T3 normal fibroblasts up to 50 µg/mL. FITC conjugation had no contribution to the particle’s toxicity. Through confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM), synthesized FITC-CNC manifested negligible cellular accumulation, indicating a poor non-selective adsorptive endocytosis into studied cells. Overall, an untargeted CNC-based nanosphere with less cytotoxicity that posed poor selectivity against normal and cancerous cells was successfully synthesized. It can be considered safe and suitable to be developed into targeted nanocarrier.

Transparent inorganic multicolour displays enabled by zinc-based electrochromic devices

“…In the spectrum of the as-prepared SVO/cellulose film before annealing, the absorption bands at approximately 1158, 1106 and 1042 cm −1 are assigned to the stretching vibration of C-C, C-H in-plane bending and stretching vibration of C-O-C, respectively. These absorption bands originate from cellulose, confirming the existence of cellulose in such films 25,26 . After annealing at 200°C for 24 h, no functional groups of cellulose are found in the spectrum (Fig.…”

On the toxicity of cellulose nanocrystals and nanofibrils in animal and cellular models

“…No significant cytotoxicity has been reported for CNCs tested in other cell models, as the S/9 insect cells and V79 Chinese hamster lung fibroblasts (Male et al 2012), L929 mouse fibroblasts (Ni et al 2012), C6 rat glioma and NIH373 murine fibroblasts (Shazali et al 2019). New forms of rod-shaped CNCs have been produced from other vegetal biomass sources, as raw rubberwood and Kenaf-bast fibre (Tuerxun et al 2019), and raw wheat bran (Xiao et al 2019), and all these CNCs were tested by the MTT assay.…”

Preparation and Characterization Nanocrystalline Cellulose as a Food Additive to Produce Healthy Biscuit Cream

“…[19] Limited studies have been performed on the safety issues related to the use of nanocellulose on human body, nevertheless it can be generally stated that no evidence of serious cellular or genetic damage was found from in vivo-in vitro experiments. [20][21][22][23] The instability may occur as a consequence of replacing solid fats with liquid oils. [24] Therefore, this study was designed in two phases: the first phase was dedicated to producing CNCs from cotton linter using a combination of homogenizer and ultrasound and exploring its morphological properties and thermal stability.…”

“…[ 19 ] Limited studies have been performed on the safety issues related to the use of nanocellulose on human body, nevertheless it can be generally stated that no evidence of serious cellular or genetic damage was found from in vivo–in vitro experiments. [ 20–23 ]…”