Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012;2(3):271-82.
doi: 10.7150/thno.3618. Epub 2012 Mar 5.

Pharmacokinetics, metabolism and toxicity of carbon nanotubes for biomedical purposes

Sheng-Tao Yang  1 , Jianbin Luo, Qinghan Zhou, Haifang Wang
Affiliations

Pharmacokinetics, metabolism and toxicity of carbon nanotubes for biomedical purposes

Sheng-Tao Yang et al. Theranostics. 2012.

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted great interest of the nano community and beyond. However, the biomedical applications of CNTs arouse serious concerns for their unknown in vivo consequence, in which the information of pharmacokinetics, metabolism and toxicity of CNTs is essential. In this review, we summarize the updated data of CNTs from the biomedical view. The information shows that surface chemistry is crucial in regulating the in vivo behaviors of CNTs. Among the functionalization methods, PEGylation is the most efficient one to improve the pharmacokinetics and biocompatibility of CNTs. The guiding effects of the pharmacokinetics, metabolism and toxicity information on the biomedical applications of CNTs are discussed.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes; biomedical applications.; metabolism; pharmacokinetics; toxicity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Biodistribution of Tween 80 dispersed SWCNTs in mice after intravenous injection. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Pharmacokinetics of PEG-PL/SWCNTs in mice after intravenous injection. (a) Raman spectra of blood samples after the injection of l-PEG2000-PL/SWCNTs (l: linear); (b) Raman spectra of blood samples after the injection of l-PEG5000-PL/SWCNTs; (c) Raman spectra of blood samples after the injection of br-PEG7000-PL/SWCNTs; (d) PEG-PL/SWCNTs concentrations in blood at different time points postexposure. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Time-dependent PEG-SWCNT concentrations in blood (a) and mice (b) after the intravenous injection to mice. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Biodistribution of two different amino-SWCNTs in mice after intravenous injection. Insets show the schematic structures of amino-SWCNTs. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 5
Figure 5
TEM images of SWCNTs in digested solution of liver (a) and lungs (b) at 90 days postexposure. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Replacement of Pluronic F108 on SWCNTs by serum proteins. The desorption is characterized by NIR fluorescence spectra. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Defunctionalization of PEG-SWCNTs in liver after intravenous injection reflected by Raman spectra (the inset featuring the region around 1590 cm-1, from bottom up: the control, 1 day, 1 week, and 4 weeks postexposure). Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Long-term toxicity of Tween 80 dispersed SWCNTs to mice after intravenous injection. (a) Serum biochemical index; (b, c) Histopathology of liver (b) and lungs (c). White arrows indicate the trapped SWCNTs. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Hematological indicators of mice exposed to PEG-SWCNTs and PEG-PL/SWCNTs. MCV: mean corpuscular volume; MCH: mean corpuscular hemoglobin; MCHC: mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. Adapted from reference with permission.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Muscle implanted with CNTs after 7 and 90 days of implantation. No uniform fibrous capsule separates the implant from the muscle tissue. Adapted from reference with permission.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Schnorr JM, Swager TM. Emerging applications of carbon nanotubes. Chem Mater. 2011;23:646–657.
    1. Lu F, Gu L, Meziani MJ. et al. Advances in bioapplications of carbon nanotubes. Adv Mater. 2009;21:139–152.
    1. Thakare VS, Das M, Jain AK. et al. Carbon nanotubes in cancer theragnosis. Nanomedicine. 2010;5:1277–1301. - PubMed
    1. Vashist SK, Zheng D, Pastorin G. et al. Delivery of drugs and biomolecules using carbon nanotubes. Carbon. 2011;49:4077–4097.
    1. Moon HK, Lee SH, Choi HC. In vivo near-infrared mediated tumor destruction by photothermal effect of carbon nanotubes. ACS Nano. 2009;3:3707–3713. - PubMed