Beijing Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Beijing 100850, People's Republic of China.
Nanoscale Res Lett. 2013 Jun 8;8(1):276. doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-8-276.
We aimed at investigating the effect of carbon dots on the BALB/c mice immune system. Mice were respectively treated with different doses of carbon dots and saline. At 1 and 9 days after intravenous administration of carbon dots, splenocyte proliferation, subpopulation of the peripheral lymphocytes, and induction of primary immune responses in mice were investigated. The results showed that high dose of carbon dots could promote the percentages of CD3+ and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) secretion and decrease the proportions of CD4+/CD8+ on the first day after administration. At 9 days post exposure, the proliferation of splenocytes had a significant increase. IFN-γ secretion and proportions of CD3+/CD19+ were also found to have an obvious promotion, and both the percentages of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes were raised, whereas the expression of cytokines made little change in the treated groups, except for IL-12 which had a slight increase in the 50-mg/kg group. The weight coefficients and histological analysis of the spleen and thymus of the treated mice exerted fewer differences compared with those from the control mice. It suggests that carbon dots could influence the immune functions of normal BALB/c mice by inducing Th1 and Tc responses and that these effects were not enough to induce the morphological change of the immune organs.
我们旨在研究碳点对 BALB/c 小鼠免疫系统的影响。小鼠分别用不同剂量的碳点和生理盐水处理。在静脉注射碳点后的第 1 天和第 9 天，研究了脾细胞增殖、外周淋巴细胞亚群和小鼠初次免疫应答的诱导。结果表明，高剂量的碳点可促进给药后第 1 天 CD3+和干扰素-γ（IFN-γ）分泌的百分比增加，并降低 CD4+/CD8+的比例。在暴露后 9 天，脾细胞的增殖显著增加。IFN-γ分泌和 CD3+/CD19+的比例也明显增加，CD4+和 CD8+T 淋巴细胞的百分比均升高，而细胞因子的表达在处理组中几乎没有变化，除了 50-mg/kg 组中的 IL-12 略有增加。与对照组相比，处理组小鼠的脾脏和胸腺的体重系数和组织学分析差异较小。这表明碳点通过诱导 Th1 和 Tc 反应影响正常 BALB/c 小鼠的免疫功能，而这些影响不足以引起免疫器官的形态变化。
