In vivo percutaneous permeation of gold nanomaterials in consumer cosmetics: implication in dermal safety assessment of consumer nanoproducts

Abstract

The increasing emergence of nano-cosmetics in the marketplace provokes safety concerns with respect to percutaneous permeation and toxicity of nanomaterials inside the human body. In this study, in vivo percutaneous permeation and dermal safety of cosmetic cream containing Au nanosheets and extracted Au nanosheets from cosmetic creams are investigated with guinea pigs. Quantitative percutaneous permeation data suggests that Au nanosheets in cosmetic creams permeate into the skin epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous layer after 10 d cutaneous exposure, but cannot enter the systemic circulation. However, more Au nanosheets are accumulated in the skin and the permeation of Au nanosheets increased after embedded into the cream matrix. Synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (SRXRF) imaging reveals that Au nanosheets in cosmetics penetrate mainly through hair follicles in a time-dependent manner. Cosmetic creams rather than extracted Au nanosheets decrease the cell viability of keratinocytes and slightly induce apoptosis/necrosis of keratinocytes and skin dermal fibroblasts. Intriguingly, the growth of hair is inhibited by the cosmetic cream and the extracted Au nanosheets revealed by HE staining and immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay. Altogether this study provides insights into the comprehensive understanding of percutaneous permeation and dermal safety of cosmetic creams containing Au nanosheets. This work provides reliable methods to study the skin permeation, biodistribution, and dermal safety of nano-cosmetics and reminds the community of the crucial need to combine the assays at molecular, cellular, and organ levels in nanotoxicology research.

Keywords:

• Percutaneous permeation
• dermal safety
• in vivo
• nano-cosmetics

Acknowledgments

The authors greatly appreciate all staff from beamline BL-15U1A in Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for their kind help in SRXRF experiments.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

Table 1. Biological index indicating functions of heart, liver and kidney measured by blood biochemistry.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China [2016YFA0201600, 2016YFE0133100], the Program for International S&T Cooperation Projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China [2018YFE0117200], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [31800844, 51861145302], the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [11621505], the CAS Key Research Program for Frontier Sciences [QYZDJ-SSW-SLH022], the Austrian-Chinese Cooperative RTD Project [GJHZ201949, FFG and CAS] and CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team.