Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine
Volume 5, Issue 2 , Pages 162-169, June 2009

Protracted elimination of gold nanoparticles from mouse liver

  • Evaldas Sadauskas, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Neurobiology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark
    • National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Department of Neurobiology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
    • ,
  • Gorm Danscher, DVM, DMSc

      Affiliations

    • Department of Neurobiology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark
    • ,
  • Meredin Stoltenberg, MD, PhD, DMSc

      Affiliations

    • Department of Neurobiology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark
    • ,
  • Ulla Vogel, PhD

      Affiliations

    • National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark
    • National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Søborg, Denmark
    • Institute for Science, Systems and Models, University of Roskilde, Roskilde, Denmark
    • ,
  • Agnete Larsen, MD, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Neurobiology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark
    • ,
  • Håkan Wallin, PhD

      Affiliations

    • National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

Received 24 July 2008; accepted 9 November 2008. published online 19 December 2008.

Abstract 

The present study aims at revealing the fate of 40-nm gold nanoparticles after intravenous injections. The gold nanoparticles were traced histochemically with light and transmission electron microscopy using autometallographic (AMG) staining, and the gold content in the liver was determined with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Gold nanoparticles were identified in almost all Kupffer cells one day after the injection, but the fraction of gold-loaded cells gradually decreased to about one fifth after 6 months. Transmission electron microscopic analysis showed that the gold nanoparticles had accumulated inside the vesicular lysosome/endosome-like structures of the macrophages. At day 1, about 4.5‰ of the area of the liver sections was AMG-stained, after 1 month it had decreased to 0.7‰, and thereafter no further significant reduction was recorded. Because ICP-MS only showed a 9% fall in the gold content over the observed 6 months, the AMG finding of a significant reduction in the stained area of the liver sections and number of macrophages loaded with gold nanoparticles reveals that over time an increasing part of the total amount of gold nanoparticles in the liver is contained in fewer macrophages accumulated in growing clusters.

Key words: Gold: Nanoparticles, Autometallography, Liver, Protracted elimination, Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

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 This work was supported by grants from the Danish Ministry of Interior and Health, Research Centre for Environmental Health's Fund, The Danish Medical Research Council, Aarhus University, and The National Research Centre for the Working Environment NRCWE and the Danielsen foundation.

PII: S1549-9634(08)00188-3

doi:10.1016/j.nano.2008.11.002

Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine
Volume 5, Issue 2 , Pages 162-169, June 2009

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