Synthesis, Culture Medium Stability, and In Vitro and In Vivo Zebrafish Embryo Toxicity of Metal–Organic Framework Nanoparticles

Abstract

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are among the most attractive porous materials available today. They have garnered much attention for their potential utility in many different areas such as gas storage, separation, catalysis, and biomedicine. However, very little is known about the possible health or environmental risks of these materials. Here, the results of toxicity studies on sixteen representative uncoated MOF nanoparticles (nanoMOFs), which were assessed for cytotoxicity to HepG2 and MCF7 cells in vitro, and for toxicity to zebrafish embryos in vivo, are reported. Interestingly, there is a strong correlation between their in vitro toxicity and their in vivo toxicity. NanoMOFs were ranked according to their respective in vivo toxicity (in terms of the amount and severity of phenotypic changes observed in the treated zebrafish embryos), which varied widely. Altogether these results show different levels of toxicity of these materials; however, leaching of solubilized metal ions plays a main role.

In vitro biocompatibility of mesoporous metal (III; Fe, Al, Cr) trimesate MOF nanocarriers

“….) In this sense, a second work dealing with the a Laboratoire de Cancérologie Expérimentale, Service de Radiobiologie screening of the in vivo toxicity of nine nanoMOFs with different structures and compositions in zebrafish embryos was recently reported by Ruyra et al, 28 concluding a wide variation of the toxicity of the different nanoMOFs and highlighting the influence of the cation leaching coming from the hybrid network degradation. [19][20][21][22][23][24] Therefore, prior to any bioapplication of nanoMOFs, it is of high relevance to investigate their toxicity profile.…”

Oocyte exposure to ZnO nanoparticles inhibits early embryonic development through the γ-H2AX and NF-κB signaling pathways

“…Many animal models have been used to test NPs embryo-toxicity; these include zebrafish [2–8, 10, 11, 14–17, 20–22, 24–28, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 45–47, 49–51, 53–57, 59, 62, 64, 66–70], mice [1, 9, 12, 13, 42, 48, 52, 63, 71], rat [18, 19, 30, 32], chicken [36, 44], oryzias latipes [23, 29, 34, 58], Xenopus laevis [7, 60], sea urchin [40] Mytilus galloprovincialis (Lmk) [39], snail [61], and oyster [65]. Many different types of NPs have been tested using these animal models.…”

“…Many different types of NPs have been tested using these animal models. The most popular NPs are silver (Ag) NPs [1, 3, 8, 12, 13, 16, 22–26, 28, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 41, 43, 48, 49, 55, 56, 65, 66, 70], then zinc oxide (ZnO) NPs [3, 7, 14, 15, 18–20, 26, 40, 47, 62], gold (Au) NPs [3, 29, 30, 45, 46, 50–52, 55, 66, 67], titanium dioxide (TiO2) NPs [9, 16, 17, 21, 25, 28, 31, 39, 63, 69], silicon dioxide (SiO2) NPs [3, 26, 35, 58, 63], Cd NPs [3, 26, 53, 61], chitosan NPs [4, 42, 57], quantum tots [11, 60, 68], Cu NPs [25, 27, 64], platinium (Pt) NPs [44, 55] and other NPs including CoFe2O4, selenium, diamond, Ni, F2O3, and lead NPs [2, 5, 6, 10, 26, 27, 36, 45, 54, 59, 69, 71]. Although many articles have been published exploring the embryo-toxicity of NPs, only their toxic effects on different embryos have been investigated and very few studies have examined the underlying mechanisms.…”

Toxicity of nanoscale metal organic frameworks: a perspective

“…They concluded that other factors such as formation of new species upon degradation, nature of crystals (e.g., size, shape, charge, etc.) may also contribute to toxicity of nanoscale MOFs (Ruyra et al 2015). There are many other parameters that may contribute toward toxicity of nanoscale MOFs, e.g., reactivity, solubility, mobility, penetration ability, nature of functionalized material, type of metal and organic precursors.…”