Studies on the Physical and Chemical Properties of Metal Nanoparticles on the Proliferation, Differentiation and Death of Cells

The structure and properties of metal nanoparticles make them useful for a wide array of biological application. During the last years engineered nanoparticles have been extensively used in different technologies and consequently many questions have arisen about the risk and the impact on human health. Nevertheless, at present knowledge about the interactions of nanomaterials with cells, uptake mechanisms, distribution, excretion, toxicological endpoints and mechanism of action remain unanswered. Investigations on the in vitro cytotoxicity of metal nanoparticles have already been performed, but so far results were inconclusive. Due to the contradictory results of the previous investigations, the proposal is aimed at examining the effect of metal nanoparticles on the proliferation, differentiation, uptake and induced cell death mechanisms of murine macrophage (RAW 264.7), osteoblast-like cell (MG63) and primary osteoblast cell. To this end, we will tune the fabrication parameter to prepare gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles and metal@silica coreshell nanoarticles which differed in size and surface charge. We will utilize these nanoparticles to investigate the proliferation, differentiation, uptake and induced cell death mechanisms of induced by metal nanoparticles. Furthermore, we investigated the uptake and induced cell death mechanisms by using a laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM).

Project ID:PB10101-3224
External Project ID:NSC99-2221-E182-010-MY3