CYTOTOXICITY STUDY OF ULTRASMALL PHOSPHONIUM GOLD NANOPARTICLES USING PLANT AND ANIMAL CELL CULTURES

Resumo

Abstract—The biocompatibility of ultrasmall colloidal gold nanoparticles seems an important problem due to their expanding range of biomedical and technical applications every year. According to most studies, this type of nanoparticle is toxic to living organisms. However, it is not clear which particular component of the colloidal system exhibits toxicity: whether it is associated with the particles themselves or with the dispersion medium. Also, the mechanism of the toxic effect is not clear. Solving this problem goes hand in hand with identifying the source of toxicity in the preparation of ultrasmall phosphonium gold nanoparticles, obtained by the Duff method using the following cell test systems: microalgae cultures of Dunaliella salina and animal cell cultures of the HeLa and Vero lines. Nanoparticles washed three times of the medium were not toxic to animal cells and were slightly toxic to D. salina. It was found that the toxicity of the preparation of ultrasmall phosphonium gold nanoparticles is controlled by the toxicity of the dispersion medium; it can be assumed that complex-ionic forms of gold are the main source of toxicity in the dispersion medium.