Ecotoxicity and uptake of polymer coated gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Bioconjugated gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) are a promising tool for pharmaceutical applications. However, the ecotoxicity of these types of NPs has hardly been studied. We investigated the ecotoxicity and uptake of 4–5 nm Au NPs to which two types of polymer coatings were attached. One coating was an amphiphilic polymer only and the other an amphiphilic coating to which 10 kDa polyethylene glycol chains were attached. In both 72 h algal growth inhibition tests with the alga Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and in 24 h resazurin cytotoxicity tests with the rainbow trout gill cell line RTGill-W1, the pegylated Au NPs were found less toxic compared to the amphiphilic coated particles. No uptake or direct interaction between particles and algal cells was observed. However, uptake/adsorption in fish gill cells reached up to >10⁶ particles/cell after 1 h and particles were eliminated for ≥96% after 24 h depuration. Both particle types were found within membrane enclosed vesicles in the cytoplasm of RTgill-W1 cells.

Keywords::

• Environmental toxicology
• nanoparticles
• surface chemistry
• algae
• RTGill-W1

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the European Union Sixth Framework Programme NanoInteract (NMP4-CT-2006-033231) and the Agency for Innovation through Science and Technology (IWT, Belgium). Parts of this work were supported by BMBF (WJP, project UMSICHT). Furthermore, we thank Dr. Kristin Schirmer and Myriam Claeys.