Circulation and long-term fate of functionalized, biocompatible single-walled carbon nanotubes in mice probed by Raman spectroscopy

By Zhuang Liu, C. Davis, Weibo Cai, Lina He, Xiaoyuan Chen, Hongjie Dai. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008

1,078 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Carbon nanotubes are promising new materials for molecular delivery in biological systems. The long-term fate of nanotubes intravenously injected into animals in vivo is currently unknown, an issue critical to potential clinical applications of these materials. Here, using the intrinsic Raman spectroscopic signatures of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), we measured the blood circulation of intravenously injected SWNTs and detect SWNTs in various organs and tissues of mice ex vivo over a period of three months. Functionalization of SWNTs by branched polyethylene-glycol (PEG) chains was developed, enabling thus far the longest SWNT blood circulation up to 1 day, relatively low uptake in the reticuloendothelial system (RES), and near-complete clearance from the main organs in ≈2 months. Raman spectroscopy detected SWNT in the intestine, feces, kidney, and bladder of mice, suggesting excretion and clearance of SWNTs from mice via the biliary and renal pathways. No toxic side effect of SWNTs to mice was observed in necropsy, histology, and blood chemistry measurements. These findings pave the way to future biomedical applications of carbon nanotubes.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/47390d9452d535be8daa03116fa8d1175e5eb8bd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Biomedical Engineering

1. Zhuang Liu
2. Hongjie Dai
3. Kevin D. Welsher
4. Kostas Kostarelos
5. M. Prato
6. A. Bianco
7. Guosong Hong
8. A. Antaris

In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

1. A. Bianco
2. M. Prato
3. Zhuang Liu
4. Kostas Kostarelos
5. Xiaoyuan Chen
6. Ali Khademhosseini
7. Hongjie Dai
8. Guosong Hong

In Materials Chemistry

1. Zhuang Liu
2. Hongjie Dai
3. Kostas Kostarelos
4. M. Prato
5. A. Bianco
6. Kevin D. Welsher
7. Guosong Hong
8. Kai Yang

Citations in the corpus

• In vivo pharmacokinetics, long-term biodistribution, and toxicology of PEGylated graphene in mice. (2011, methodology): “While certain amounts of NGS-PEG (especially those with larger sizes) accumulated in the RES macrophages could be excreted via the biliary pathway into feces.(33) Another possibility is the gradual degradation of nanographene in vivo (e.”
• Nanoparticle PEGylation for imaging and therapy (2011, background): “For example, PEGylated phospholipids with linear or branched PEG chains bind to the hydrophobic surface of single-walled carbon nanotubes in such a way that hydrophilic PEG groups are facing the aqueous exterior and provide the nanotubes with hydrophilic PEG corona [107,108].”