Blood Biochemical and Hematological Study after Subacute Intravenous Injection of Gold and Silver Nanoparticles and Coadministered Gold and Silver Nanoparticles of Similar Sizes.

BACKGROUND

To investigate the effect of subacute intravenous administration AgNP (silver nanoparticles, 10 nm) and AuNP (gold nanoparticles, 12.8 nm) and AgNP/AuNP mixture to blood biochemistry, hematology, and platelet coagulation, subacute toxicity study was conducted.

METHODS

AuNP and AgNP in which their size distribution was not statistically different, mixed or separate, were injected into the caudal vein of male Sprague-Dawley rats for 4 weeks. The rats were allowed to recover for a further 4 weeks in order to examine systemic toxicity expressed in the blood biochemistry and hematology. The dose groups (5 males per group for the administration and 3 males for the recovery) consisted of 7 divisions, i.e., control, AgNP (with a low dose of 10 g/kg/day and a high dose of 100 g/kg/day), AuNP (with a low dose of 10 g/kg/day and a high dose of 100 g/kg/day), and mixed AgNP/AuNP (with a low dose of 10/10 g/kg/day and a high dose of 100/100 g/kg/day).

RESULTS

There were no significant dose-related changes in the hematology and blood biochemical values for the rats. Coagulation time in terms of the active partial thromboplastin time (APTT) and prothrombin time (PT) did not show any significant changes, when compared to the control group.

CONCLUSION

The subacute injection of AuNP and AgNP or their mixture did not induce any noticeable systemic toxicity.