Nanoparticles are emerging as a useful tool for a wide variety of biomedical, consumer and instrumental applications that include drug delivery systems, biosensors and environmental sensors. In particular, nanoparticles have been shown to offer greater specificity with enhanced bioavailability and less detrimental side effects as compared to the existing conventional therapies in nanomedicine. ...

Nanotoxicity has become of increasing concern since the rapid development of metal nanoparticles (NPs). Aquatic nanotoxicity depends on crucial qualitative and quantitative properties of nanomaterials that induce adverse effects on subcellular, tissue, and, organ level. The dose-response effects of size-dependent metal NPs, however, are not well investigated in aquatic organisms. In order to de...

Herein, for the first time, we demonstrated that novel biofunctionalized semiconductor nanomaterials made of Cd-containing fluorescent quantum dot nanoconjugates with the surface capped by an aminopolysaccharide are not biologically safe for clinical applications. Conversely, the ZnS-based nanoconjugates proved to be noncytotoxic, considering all the parameters investigated. The results of in v...

Application of nanoscale materials (NMs) displays a rapidly increasing trend in electronics, optics, chemical catalysis, biotechnology, and medicine due to versatile nature of NMs and easily adjustable physical, physicochemical, and chemical properties. However, the increasing abundance of NMs also poses significant new and emerging health and environmental risks. Despite growing efforts, under...

Semiconductor nanoparticles, such as quantum dots (QDs), were used to carry out experiments in vivo and ex vivo with Trypanosoma cruzi. However, questions have been raised regarding the nanotoxicity of QDs in living cells, microorganisms, tissues and whole animals. The objective of this paper was to conduct a QD nanotoxicity study on living T. cruzi protozoa using analytical methods. This was a...

The evaluation of engineered nanomaterial safety has been hindered by conflicting reports demonstrating differential degrees of toxicity with the same nanoparticles. The unique properties of these materials increase the likelihood that they will interfere with analytical techniques, which may contribute to this phenomenon. We tested the potential for: 1) nanoparticle intrinsic fluorescence/abso...

Exopolymeric substances (EPS) have an important role in bioaccumulation and toxicity of nanoparticles (NPs) to algae, which warrants specific studies. The interaction of EPS with citrate and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) coated AgNPs (C-AgNPs and P-AgNPs, respectively) and its roles in bioaccumulation and toxicity of the AgNPs to Chlorella pyrenoidosa were investigated. The amino and aromatic car...

Gathering required information in a fast and inexpensive way is essential for assessing the risks of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs). The extension of conventional (quantitative) structure-activity relationships ((Q)SARs) approach to nanotoxicology, i.e., nano-(Q)SARs, is a possible solution. The preliminary attempts of correlating ENMs' characteristics to the biological effects elicited by ENM...

Sexual glands are key sites affected by nanotoxicity, but there is no sensitive assay for measuring reproductive toxicity in animals. The aim of this study was to investigate the toxic effects of cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe-QDs) on gonads in a model organism, Bombyx mori. After dorsal vein injection of 0.32 nmol of CdTe-QDs per individual, the QDs passed through the outer membranes of ...

To assess the toxicity of copper nanoparticles (23.5 nm) in vivo, LD(50), morphological changes, pathological examinations and blood biochemical indexes of experimental mice are studied comparatively with micro-copper particles (17 microm) and cupric ions (CuCl(2).2H(2)O). The LD(50) for the nano-, micro-copper particles and cupric ions exposed to mice via oral gavage are 413, >5000 and 110 mg/...