Toxicological Evaluation toward Refined Montmorillonite with Human Colon Associated Cells and Human Skin Associated Cells

Abstract

Montmorillonite has been refined to overcome uncertainties originating from different sources, which offers opportunities for addressing various health issues, e.g., cosmetics, wound dressings, and antidiarrheal medicines. Herein, three commercial montmorillonite samples were obtained from different sources and labeled M1, M2, and M3 for Ca-montmorillonite, magnesium-enriched Ca-montmorillonite, and silicon-enriched Na-montmorillonite, respectively. Commercial montmorillonite was refined via ultrasonic scission-differential centrifugation and labeled S, M, or L according to the particle sizes (small, medium, or large, respectively). The size distribution decreased from 2000 nm to 250 nm with increasing centrifugation rates from 3000 rpm to 12,000 rpm. Toxicological evaluations with human colon-associated cells and human skin-associated cells indicated that side effects were correlated with excess dosages and silica sand. These side effects were more obvious with human colon-associated cells. The microscopic interactions between micro/nanosized montmorillonite and human colon-associated cells or human skin-associated cells indicated that those interactions were correlated with the size distributions. The interactions of the M1 series with the human cells were attributed to size effects because montmorillonite with a broad size distribution was stored in the M1 series. The M2 series interactions with human cells did not seem to be correlated with size effects because large montmorillonite particles were retained after refining. The M3 series interactions with human cells were attributed to size effects because small montmorillonite particles were retained after refining. This illustrates that toxicological evaluations with refined montmorillonite must be performed in accordance with clinical medical practices.

Clays and Wound Healing

“…Those toxicities evaluations about wound healing materials should be carried out following those clinical medical orientations, which are different from oral usage, intravenous usage, external usage, etc., and that enable those standardized evaluation activities to be carried out in the micro/nano-biological studies. The evaluation of toxicities is related to influencing factors about mineral-based wound healing materials in literature [87][88][89][90][91], including mineral size distribution, mineral trace elements, human skin-associated cell lines, micro/nano-biological interactions, etc. Besides, some side effects were correlated with the excess dosages and silica sand.…”

“…These mineral trace elements, including iron, calcium, manganese, titanium, zinc, etc., could cause side effects in clinical medical studies, such as the excess calcium or zinc intake could induce diseases due to broken ion homeostasis, the excess Fe intake could induce diseases due to reactive -OH radicals. Mineral-based hemostatic materials have some shortcomings, such as being hard to remove from wound sites, inducing inflammation and thrombosis due to wound contamination and inefficient micro/nano-biological interactions, and therefore limiting their commercial use [91]. Nevertheless, the limitations of wound healing materials should be determined through that actual scenario, such as compressible hemostasis or incompressible hemostasis, acute or chronic wound healing, diabetic wound healing, infected wound healing, etc.…”