Silver Nanoparticles Interactions with the Immune System: Implications for Health and Disease

SummarySilver has attracted a lot of attention as a powerful, broad spectrum and natural antimicrobial agent since the ancient times because of its nontoxic nature to the human body at low concentrations. It has been used in treatment of various infections and ulcers, storage of water and prevention of bacterial growth on the surfaces and within materials. However, there are numerous medical and health benefits of colloidal or nanosilver apart from its microbicidal ability which as yet has not been fully embraced by the medical community. These include antiplatelet activity, antioxidant effect, anticancer activity, wound healing and bone regeneration, enhancement of immunity, and increase in antibiotic efficiency. Additionally silver also provides protection against alcohol toxicity, upper respiratory tract infections and stomach ailments. Although nanosilver has been proposed for various topical applications, its usage by ingestion and inhalation remains controversial due to the lack of detailed and precise toxicity information. These beneficial properties of silver can be utilized by using silver at very low concentrations which are not harmful to the human body and environment. The following review discusses the diverse medical applications of silver and further recommends human clinical studies for its in vivo usage.

show abstract

“…Hence, the synergistic effect may be attributed to the binding reaction of antibiotic and AgNPs (Klippstein et al . ; Naqvi et al . ).…”

Section: Synergistic Effect Of Silver and Antibioticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The silver lining: towards the responsible and limited usage of silver

Naik

Kowshik

2017

J Appl Microbiol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For authors working on human health and mammalian models, the relationships between potentiation against impairment in immune system exerted by nanosilver are still controversial [12, 13]. We tried to bring a contribution by analysing in control and nanosilver exposed ZF embryos and larvae, the distribution pattern of immunoreactivity (IR) against the cholinergic differentiation factor/leukemia inhibiting factor (CDF/LIF), a cytokine molecule responsible for cholinergic differentiation and cholinesterase expression [14], and CD41+ thymocyte recruitment [14–16] as well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Nanosilver Exposure on Cholinesterase Activities, CD41, and CDF/LIF-Like Expression in ZebraFish (Danio rerio) Larvae

Myrzakhanova

Gambardella

Falugi

et al. 2013

BioMed Research International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Metal nanosolicoparticles are suspected to cause diseases in a number of organisms, including man. In this paper, we report the effects of nanosilver (Ag, 1–20 nm particles) on the early development of the zebrafish, a well-established vertebrate model. Embryos at the midgastrula stage were exposed to concentrations ranging from 100 to 0.001 mg/L to verify the effects on different endpoints: lethality, morphology, expression of cholinergic molecules, and development of the immune system. (1) Relative risk of mortality was exponential in the range between 0.001 and 10 mg/L. Exposure to 100 mg/L caused 100% death of embryos before reaching the tail-bud stage. (2) Developmental anomalies were present in the 72 h larvae obtained from embryos exposed to nanosilver: whole body length, decreased eye dimension, and slow response to solicitation by gentle touch with a needle tip, with a significant threshold at 0.1 mg/L. (3) Dose-dependent inhibition of acetylcholinesterase activity was significant among the exposures, except between 1 mg/L and 10 mg/L. (4) The distribution of CD41+ cells and of CDF/LIF-like immunoreactivity was altered according to the Ag concentration. The possible effect of nanosilver in impairing immune system differentiation through the inhibition of molecules related to the cholinergic system is discussed.

show abstract

“…Several contributions have tried to address the issue of the interaction between the nanoparticulate system and the immune system. In [22], the authors outline the importance to avoid extensive immunostimulatory or immunosuppressive reactions to the nanomaterials when injected in the body.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to study this specific aspect, the authors in [22] focus on Ag nanoparticles. In [51], the authors focus on the observations related to two specific immune correlated "activities", such as immunostimulation and immunosuppression.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In [22], the authors focus on the effect of silver nanoparticles on the immune system by analyzing the interaction between silver nanoparticles with viruses, bacteria, etc. In [23], Felicetti et al provide a software platform, named BiNS2, able to simulate diffusion-based molecular communications inside blood vessels, in order to analyze the interactions of nanoparticles with the blood cells.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On the Interaction between a Nanoparticulate System and the Human Body in Body Area Nanonetworks

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this work, we investigate the interaction of a nanoparticulate system for nanomedicine applications with the biological environment, i.e., the human body. Following the molecular communication paradigm, we assess how our nanoparticulate system model is suitable for coexistence in a biological environment. Specifically, we assume the presence of the human immune system that can affect the optimal behavior of nanoparticles, aiming to locally deliver drug inside the human body. When a flow of nanoparticles is injected into the blood, the interference due to the immune system can provide a strong decrease of the nanoparticle concentration, by means of "humoral immunity", the phagocytosis process, etc. As a consequence, the correct drug delivery will occur with a lower probability. Since the mechanism behind the biological immune system is very complicated, in this paper, we start from a simplistic nanoparticulate model, where the nanoparticles and the cells of the immune system are subject to the diffusion laws. Finally, we derive the end-to-end physical model of our nanoparticulate nanomedicine system with the presence of the human immune system cells. The error analysis is then investigated in terms of how these errors can affect the performance of the system, i.e., nanoparticle survival probability.Micromachines 2015, 6 1214

show abstract

Silver Nanoparticles Interactions with the Immune System: Implications for Health and Disease

Cited by 24 publications

References 46 publications

The silver lining: towards the responsible and limited usage of silver

The silver lining: towards the responsible and limited usage of silver

Effects of Nanosilver Exposure on Cholinesterase Activities, CD41, and CDF/LIF-Like Expression in ZebraFish (Danio rerio) Larvae

On the Interaction between a Nanoparticulate System and the Human Body in Body Area Nanonetworks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About