Functionalized carbon nanotubes are non-cytotoxic and preserve the functionality of primary immune cells.

By H. Dumortier, S. Lacotte, G. Pastorin, Riccardo Marega, Wei Wu, D. Bonifazi, J. Briand, M. Prato, S. Muller, A. Bianco. Nano letters (Print), 2006

666 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Carbon nanotubes are emerging as innovative tools in nanobiotechnology. However, their toxic effects on environment and health have become an issue of strong concern. In the present study, we address the impact of functionalized carbon nanotubes (f-CNTs) on cells of the immune system. We have prepared two types of f-CNTs, following the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction (f-CNTs 1 and 2) and the oxidation/amidation treatment (f-CNTs 3 and 4), respectively. We have found that both types of f-CNTs are uptaken by B and T lymphocytes as well as macrophages in vitro, without affecting cell viability. Subsequently, the functionality of the different cells was analyzed carefully. We discovered that f-CNT 1, which is highly water soluble, did not influence the functional activity of immunoregulatory cells. f-CNT 3, which instead possesses reduced solubility and forms mainly stable water suspensions, preserved lymphocytes' functionality while provoking secretion of proinflammatory cytokines by macrophages.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5a63f35f2d62263b08c52b6b4b05156172c7319b

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In Biomedical Engineering

In Materials Chemistry

Citations in the corpus

A Review of Removal of Pollutants from Water/Wastewater Using Different Types of Nanomaterials (2014, background): “[238] H.”
Biomedical applications of functionalised carbon nanotubes. (2005, methodology): “In this context, our group has developed several functionalisation methods (see Paragraph 2) and we have evidenced that fully water-soluble SWNTs do not exert any deleterious effect on the survival and functionality of cell lines and primary mouse immune cells (Pantarotto et al., 2004a; Dumortier e”
Toxicity and Environmental Risks of Nanomaterials: Challenges and Future Needs (2009, neutral): “( 172 ) demonstrated that water-soluble CNTs functionalized with polyethylene glycol chains did not have toxic effects when tested in a wide variety of immune system cells.”
In vivo biodistribution and highly efficient tumour targeting of carbon nanotubes in mice. (2020, background): “Various groups have found that well water-solubilized nanotubes with high hydrophilicity are non-toxic, even at high concentration”
Biodegradable polymer matrix nanocomposites for tissue engineering: A review (2010, background): “Furthermore, there has been a tremendous interest in using the properties of CNTs to promising biological applications [119].”
Potential Applications of Carbon Nanotubes (2007, background): “The choice of functional group can impart a range of cell responses including the activation of primary immune cells by polyethylene glycol-coated SWNTs [210].”
Carbon Nanotubes in Biology and Medicine: In vitro and in vivo Detection, Imaging and Drug Delivery (2009, methodology): “We and many other groups successfully used well functionalized, serum stable carbon nanotubes for in vitro cellular uptake experiments without observing apparent toxicity [17, 18, 20, 51-57].”