Synthesis and toxicity characterization of carbon coated iron oxide nanoparticles with highly defined size distributions

• Published in: Biochimica et biophysica acta Vol. 1840; no. 1; pp. 160 - 169
• Main Authors: Mendes, Rafael Gregorio, Koch, Britta, Bachmatiuk, Alicja, El-Gendy, Ahmed Aboud, Krupskaya, Yulia, Springer, Armin, Klingeler, Rüdiger, Schmidt, Oliver, Büchner, Bernd, Sanchez, Samuel, Rümmeli, Mark Hermann
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.01.2014
• Subjects: (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay; Animals; apoptosis; Apoptosis - drug effects; Bone Neoplasms - drug therapy; Bone Neoplasms - pathology; Cancer cell; carbon; Carbon - chemistry; Carbon coating; Cell Proliferation - drug effects; cell viability; Cells, Cultured; cytotoxicity; dose response; Ferric Compounds - administration & dosage; fibroblasts; HeLa Cells; Humans; Iron oxide nanoparticle; iron oxides; macrophages; Macrophages - cytology; Macrophages - drug effects; Metal Nanoparticles - administration & dosage; Metal Nanoparticles - chemistry; Mice; nanoparticles; Nanotoxicity; NIH 3T3 Cells; osteosarcoma; Osteosarcoma - drug therapy; Osteosarcoma - pathology; Particle Size; Surface Properties; transmission electron microscopy; Trypan blue assay; Cancer cell; Nanotoxicity; (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay; Trypan blue assay; Iron oxide nanoparticle; Carbon coating
• ISSN: 0304-4165; 0006-3002; 1872-8006
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bbagen.2013.08.025

Iron oxide nanoparticles hold great promise for future biomedical applications. To this end numerous studies on iron oxide nanoparticles have been conducted. One aspect these studies reveal is that nanoparticle size and shape can trigger different cellular responses through endocytic pathways, cell viability and early apoptosis. However, systematic studies investigating the size dependence of iron oxide nanoparticles with highly defined diameters across multiple cells lines are not available yet. Iron oxide nanoparticles with well-defined size distributions were prepared. All samples were thoroughly characterized and the cytotoxicity for four standard cell lines (HeLa Kyoto, human osteosarcoma (U2OS), mouse fibroblasts (NIH 3T3) and mouse macrophages (J7442)) where investigated. Our findings show that small differences in size distribution (ca. 10nm) of iron oxide nanoparticles do not influence cytotoxicity, while uptake is size dependent. Cytotoxicity is dose-dependent. Broad distributions of nanoparticles are more easily internalized as compared to the narrow distributions for two of the cell lines tested (HeLa Kyoto and mouse macrophages (J7442)). The data indicate that it is not feasible to probe changes in cytotoxicity within a small size range (10nm). However, TEM investigations of the nanoparticles indicate that cellular uptake is size dependent. The present work compares narrow and broad distributions for various samples of carbon-coated iron oxide nanoparticles. The data highlights that cells differentiate between nanoparticle sizes as indicated by differences in cellular uptake. This information provides valuable knowledge to better understand the interaction of nanoparticles and cells. In this work, systematic studies on the size and clustering effects of carbon coated iron oxide nanoparticles on cell uptake across multiple cell lines are conducted. Our findings show that despite cytotoxicity remaining unaltered between different sizes of nanoparticles, the cellular uptake is size dependent in the size range investigated. Furthermore the data show that the clustering affects cytotoxicity, but its influence is limited. [Display omitted] •Synthesis and characterization of monodispersed carbon-coated iron oxide NPs•Size dependent cytotoxicity on four cell lines for different incubation periods•Preferential uptake of NPs in two different cell lines identified