(136g) Toxicity Studies of Chiral Nanoparticles in Vitro for Medical Applications

Chiral nanoparticles have gained a lot of interest because of their unique chiroptical properties. Chirality is defined as an objects ability to not be superimposed over its mirror image. Chirality is commonly seen in nature and has been expanded to nanofabrication. Common fabrication methods of displaying chirality are fabricating geometrically chiral nanoparticles or attaching chiral ligands to surfaces. Objects that have opposite chirality are known as enantiomers, which are the same in all physical properties except for how they interact with the polarized light. Chiroptical effects are often very small, but when a chiral plasmonic nanoparticle is fabricated the chiroptical effects are magnified [1]. This gives greater appeal to the fabrication of chiral plasmonic nanoparticles. The most common method to get chiral particles is with adhesion of chiral ligands to the surface achiral nanoparticles. Attaching these ligands impart their chirality to the surface while providing thermodynamic stability to the nanoparticles [2]. Nanoparticles that are structurally chiral without ligand assistance are often not completely chiral, holding at least one plane of symmetry [3]. In this study chiral nanopyramids, nanoparticles that hold no lines of symmetry, are explored for their cytotoxicity in retinal pigment epithelial cells (ARPE-19). Left and right enantiomers of these chiral nanopyramids are tested along with achiral nanopyramids to show the explore how the chirality changes cellular interaction of these nanoparticles. The cytotoxic effects of size, dosage and surface modifications are also explored. Further cellular damage caused by the nanopyramids is explored with modified cells that fluoresce when DNA damage is experienced. With this study toxicity and DNA damage of achiral and chiral nanopyramids is explored to for medical application limits.

References:

[1]: V. K. Valev, J. J. Baumberg, C. Sibilia and T. Verbiest, Advanced Materials, 2013, 25, 2517-2534.

[2]: W. Ma, L. Xu, A. F. de Moura, X. Wu, H. Kuang, C. Xu and N. A. Kotov, Chemical Reviews, 2017, 117, 8041-8093.

[3]: K. M. McPeak, C. D. Van Engers, M. Blome, J. H. Park, S. Burger, M. A. Gosálvez, A. Faridi, Y. R. Ries, A. Sahu and D. J. Norris, Nano Letters, 2014, 14, 2934-2940.