Serum kinetics, distribution and excretion of silver in rabbits following 28 days after a single intravenous injection of silver nanoparticles

Abstract

Serum kinetics, tissue distribution, and excretion of citrate-coated silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were investigated in rabbits (n = 4) up to 28 days after a single intravenous injection. Following a single injection of AgNPs, the AUC(last) was reported to be 3.65 ± 0.68 μg·day/ml in 5 mg/kg-treated group and 0.90 ± 0.16 μg·day/ml in 0.5 mg/kg-treated group, respectively. The accumulation of silver was observed in all the tested organs including liver, kidney, spleen, lung, brain, testis, and thymus at 1 day, 7 day, and 28 day of measurement. The liver and spleen seemed to be the major targets because of high accumulation of silver. Excretion via feces and urine was also monitored during the entire experimental period. Unexpectedly, much more excretion of silver occurred via feces than through urine after an intravenous injection, which suggests biliary excretion of AgNPs. General toxicity was analyzed and histopathological changes were also evaluated.

Toxic effects of silver nanoparticles in mammals – does a risk of neurotoxicity exist?

“…Selected studies on biodistribution of AgNPs in mammalian brain are listed in Table II. Lee and co-workers observed that after a single intravenous injection of citrate-coated AgNPs (7.9 nm), they become distributed in serum, liver, kidney, spleen, lungs, brain, testes and thymus of rabbits. Significantly, the presence of silver nanoparticles was observed at time points 1, 7 and 28 days after the injection [73]. Silver was also detected in brain of rats at 24, 96 and 168 h after an intraperitoneal injection of bovine serum albumin-coated 2 nm AgNPs [45].…”

“…Park and co-workers observed that the bioavailability of AgNPs (7.9 nm) after oral administration to rats was very low, in the range of 1.2% to 4.2% based on a single dose [101]. Following entry into the systemic circulation, AgNPs can become distributed among a number of mammalian organs, most notably liver and spleen [73,145]. Furthermore, silver nanoparticles have been found in blood, lungs, kidney, brain, heart and genital organs [67,70,73,81,101,131,145].…”

“…Following entry into the systemic circulation, AgNPs can become distributed among a number of mammalian organs, most notably liver and spleen [73,145]. Furthermore, silver nanoparticles have been found in blood, lungs, kidney, brain, heart and genital organs [67,70,73,81,101,131,145]. The results of research on the biodistribution of AgNPs indicate that most organs are able to remove AgNPs over time, with the exception of brain and testes [70,138].…”

Bioavailability of silver nanoparticles and ions: from a chemical and biochemical perspective

“…In addition, it has been shown that Ag NPs injected in rats can be translocated from the blood to all the main organs and that the concentration of Ag in tissues was significantly higher in rats treated with 20 nm Ag NPs when compared with 200 nm Ag NPs [100]. The accumulation of Ag was also observed in all examined rabbit organs, including liver, kidney, spleen, lung, brain, testis and thymus up to 28 days following a single intravenous dose [155]. An uptake of Ag NPs into mammalian cells such as lung epithelial cells could be shown in vitro by TEM using an airliquid exposure cell system to avoid particle dissolution (and aggregation) in cell culture media.…”

Differential nanoreprotoxicity of silver nanoparticles in male somatic cells and spermatogonial stem cells

“…12,13 AgNPs were found in various body tissues, including the blood, brain, liver, spleen, kidneys, thymus, lungs, and heart. [14][15][16][17][18][19] Previous studies have demonstrated that AgNPs can exert cytotoxic and genotoxic effects both in vitro (human cell lines [20][21][22][23][24][25] ) and in vivo (mice 26,17 and fish 27,28 ). Oxidative stress can strongly affect testicular functions important for spermatogenesis.…”