title: Toxicity of ionic liquids prepared from biomaterials.
abstract: In search of environmentally-friendly ionic liquids (ILs), 14 were prepared based on the imidazolium, pyridinium and choline cations, with bromide and several amino acids as anions. Good yields were obtained in the synthesis of pyridinium ILs and those prepared from choline and amino acids. Four of the ILs synthesized from choline and the amino acids arginine, glutamine, glutamic acid and cystine are described here for the first time. The toxicity of the synthesized ILs was checked against organisms of various levels of organization: the crustacean Artemia salina; Human cell HeLa (cervical carcinoma); and bacteria with different types of cell wall, Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli. The toxicity was observed to depend on both the cation and anion. Choline-amino acid ILs showed a remarkable low toxicity to A. salina and HeLa cell culture, ten times less than imidazolium and pyridinium ILs. None of ionic liquids exhibited marked toxicity to bacteria, and the effect was 2-3 orders of magnitude smaller than that of the antibiotic chloramphenicol.
authors.affiliation: CQB and Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gouveia
authors.affiliation: CQB and Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: T F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Jorge
authors.affiliation: CQB and Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Martins
authors.affiliation: CQB and Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meireles
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carolino
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cruz
authors.affiliation: CBIOS - Universidade Lusófona's Research Center for Health Science and Technologies, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: T V
authors.initials: TV
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.affiliation: CQB and Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. Electronic address: eduaraujo@fc.ul.pt.
authors.forename: M E M
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Araújo
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D000818:Animals; D000838:Anions / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity; D001156:Artemia / Q000187:drug effects; D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000187:drug effects; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D001965:Bromides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D002412:Cations / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D052578:Ionic Liquids / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D000838:Anions; D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D001965:Bromides; D002412:Cations; D052578:Ionic Liquids
keywords: Biomaterials; Green chemistry; Imidazolium; Ionic liquids; Toxicity