Iron Oxide Magnetic Nanoparticles: Characterization and Toxicity Evaluation by In Vitro and In Vivo Assays

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the biological properties of iron oxide nanoparticles (IO-NPs) obtained in the aqueous suspension. The iron oxide nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The biocompatibility of the iron oxide was demonstrated by thein vitroquantification of HeLa cells viability using propidium iodide (PI) and fluorescein diacetate (FdA) and the MTT colorimetric assay. The toxicity of small size iron oxide nanoparticles was also evaluated by means of histological examination on male Brown Norway rats after intraperitoneal injection. At the tested concentrations, the nanoparticles proved to be not cytotoxic on HeLa cells. The rat’s behavior, as well as the histopathological aspect of liver, kidney, lung, and spleen tissues at 48 h after intraperitoneal injection did not present any modifications. Thein vivoandin vitroassays suggested that the IO-NPs could be further used for developing newin vivomedical applications.

Histopathological and immunological changes induced by magnetite nanoparticles in the spleen, liver and genital tract of mice following intravaginal instillation

“…In accordance with this study, after intraperitoneal injection of MNPs (10 nm), the monocyte number in the spleen red pulp increased, and they characterized with nuclear contour irregularities. The discreet anisochromia with focal chromocenter formation were also remarked in the splenic pulp after intraperitoneal injection (Prodan and Ciobanu, 2013). Similar to the impacts caused by MNPs in this study, titanium dioxide (40 nm) cased multifocal lesions in the liver after 2 weeks of the intravenous injection (Xu et al, 2013).…”

“…Also, the spleen showed an increase in the monocyte number with chromatin irregularities in the splenic lymphocytes (Prodan and Ciobanu, 2013). Contradictory, after intravenous injection, MNPs (193 nm) did not show any histological abnormalities in the liver, spleen after 7 days of treatment (Jain et al, 2008;Kim et al, 2005).…”

“…Recently, nanomaterials were used a lot for several applications as vaccine delivery using the vaginal route (Whaley et al, 2010). The most studied nanomaterials with promising potential in the field of biomedical applications are those with magnetic properties (Prodan and Ciobanu, 2013). Recently, Fe 3 O 4 magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) have been widely used for biological applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging therapy (Yallapu et al, 2011), in hyperthermia tumor therapy , in drug delivery systems (Ansari et al, 2014) and molecular detection of biomarkers in biological cells (Haun et al, 2011).…”

The Magnetite Nanoparticles in Theranostic Applications

“…A lot of works is devoted to applications of magnetite nanoparticles in biomedicine, for example, magnetite nanoparticles can be used to enhance contrast and improve diagnostic sensitivity in (MRI) [1][2][3], targeted delivery [4][5][6], hyperthemia [7,8], tissue engineering [9]. Magnetite is quite a promising material for biomedical applications, in different studies indicates that such nanoparticles have low toxicity, good biocompatibility and sufficient magnitude of effective magnetic characteristics [10,11]. Low toxicity was also confirmed by vivo studies and morphological examination of internal organs of animals after different methods of administration of magnetite nanoparticles [12][13][14].…”

Nanoparticles and nanostructured carriers for drug delivery and contrast enhancement

“…A lot of works demonstrate that the range of nanotechnology applications in biomedicine is quite wide, for example, magnetite nanoparticles can be used to enhance contrast and improve diagnostic sensitivity in (MRI) [1-6], targeted delivery [7-9], hyperthemia [10,11], tissue engineering [12]. The magnetite nanoparticles have a considerably lower toxicity as compared with the analogues based on nickel, cobalt and other substances and sufficient magnitude of effective magnetic characteristics [13][14][15]. Magnetite is quite a promising material for biomedical applications, because it does not affect the cardiovascular system [13], its intravenous administration is permitted by U.S. Federal agency of Food and Drug Administration [14].…”