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A pilot toxicology study of single-walled carbon nanotubes in a small sample of mice

Nature Nanotechnology volume 3, pages 216–221 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotubes are currently under evaluation in biomedical applications, including in vivo delivery1,2,3 of drugs4, proteins, peptides5,6,7 and nucleic acids8,9 (for gene transfer10 or gene silencing11), in vivo tumour imaging12 and tumour targeting of single-walled carbon nanotubes as an anti-neoplastic treatment5. However, concerns about the potential toxicity of single-walled carbon nanotubes have been raised13,14. Here we examine the acute and chronic toxicity of functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes when injected into the bloodstream of mice. Survival, clinical and laboratory parameters reveal no evidence of toxicity over 4 months. Upon killing, careful necropsy and tissue histology show age-related changes only. Histology and Raman microscopic mapping demonstrate that functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes persisted within liver and spleen macrophages for 4 months without apparent toxicity. Although this is a preliminary study with a small group of animals, our results encourage further confirmation studies with larger groups of animals.

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Figure 1: Body weight of nude mice following injection of SWNTs.
Figure 2: Complete blood counts of nude mice following injection of SWNTs.
Figure 3: Liver and spleen histology.
Figure 4: AFM images and Raman spectra of SWNTs.
Figure 5: Micro-Raman mapping of paraffin-embedded mouse tissues.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by grants from the National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) U54 CA119367 (S.S.G.) and In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center (ICMIC) P50 CA114747 (S.S.G.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology and Bio-X Program, Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), California, Palo Alto, 94305-5427, USA

    Meike L. Schipper & Sanjiv S. Gambhir

  2. Department of Chemistry, California, Palo Alto, 94305-5427, USA

    Nozomi Nakayama-Ratchford, Nadine Wong Shi Kam, Zhuang Liu, Xiaoming Sun & Hongjie Dai

  3. Department of Comparative Medicine, Stanford University, California, Palo Alto, 94305-5427, USA

    Corrine R. Davis & Pauline Chu

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  1. Meike L. Schipper
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Contributions

M.L.S. and S.S.G. conceived and designed the experiments. M.L.S. performed the experiments. M.L.S. and S.S.G. analysed the data. N.N.R., C.R.D., N.W.S.K., P.C., Z.L., X.S. and H.D. contributed materials and analysis tools. M.L.S. and S.S.G. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sanjiv S. Gambhir.

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Schipper, M., Nakayama-Ratchford, N., Davis, C. et al. A pilot toxicology study of single-walled carbon nanotubes in a small sample of mice. Nature Nanotech 3, 216–221 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.68

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