title: In vivo toxicity assessment of non-cadmium quantum dots in BALB/c mice.
abstract: Along with widespread usage of QDs in electronic and biomedical industries, the likelihood of QDs exposure to the environment and humans is deemed to occur when the QD products are degraded or handled as waste for processing. To date, there are very few toxicological reports available in the literature for non-cadmium QDs in animal models. In this work, we studied the long term in vivo toxicity of InP/ZnS QDs in BALB/c mice. The biodistribution, body weight, hematology, blood biochemistry, and organ histology were determined at a very high dosage (25 mg/kg) of InP/ZnS QDs over 84 days period. Our results manifested that the QDs formulation did not result in observable toxicity in vivo within the evaluation period, thereby suggesting that the InP/ZnS QDs can be utilized as optical probes or nanocarrier for selected in vivo biological applications when an optimized dosage is employed.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  This study investigated the toxicity of quantum dots in BALB/c mice, and concluded that no organotoxicity was detectable despite of using high concentration of InP/ZnS quantum dots with prolonged exposure of 3 months.
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering and Shenzhen Key lab of Translational Medicine of Tumor, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Guimiao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering and Shenzhen Key lab of Translational Medicine of Tumor, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors.forename: Qingling
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Ouyang
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering and Shenzhen Key lab of Translational Medicine of Tumor, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Zhangchi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering and Shenzhen Key lab of Translational Medicine of Tumor, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Jinglin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education/Guangdong Province, College of Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Gaixia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering and Shenzhen Key lab of Translational Medicine of Tumor, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering and Shenzhen Key lab of Translational Medicine of Tumor, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Xiaomei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Electronic address: ktyong@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Ken-Tye
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Yong
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D007204:Indium / Q000633:toxicity*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000633:toxicity*; D010720:Phosphines / Q000633:toxicity*; D045663:Quantum Dots / Q000633:toxicity*; D014018:Tissue Distribution / Q000187:drug effects; D019287:Zinc Sulfate / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D010720:Phosphines; D007204:Indium; D019287:Zinc Sulfate; C090882:indium phosphide
keywords: Biodistribution; Indium phosphide; Quantum dots; Toxicity