title: Comparative toxicity evaluation of flower-shaped and spherical gold nanoparticles on human endothelial cells.
abstract: In this paper, we propose a multi-parametric in vitro study of the cytotoxicity of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) on human endothelial cell (HUVEC). The cytotoxicity is evaluated by incubating cells with six different GNP types which have two different morphologies: spherical and flower-shaped, two sizes (∼15 and ∼50 nm diameter) and two surface chemistries (as prepared form and PEGylated form). Our results showed that by increasing the concentration of GNPs the cell viability decreases with a toxic concentration threshold of 10 pM for spherical GNPs and of 1 pM for flower-shaped GNPs. Dark field images, flow cytometry and spreading test revealed that flower-shaped GNPs have more deleterious effects on the cell mechanisms than spherical GNPs. We demonstrated that the main parameter in the evaluation of the GNPs toxicity is the GNPs roughness and that this effect is independent on the surface chemistry. We assume that this behavior is highly related to the efficiency of the GNPs internalization within the cells and that this effect is enhanced due to the specific geometry of the flower-shaped GNPs.
authors.affiliation: Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, UFR SMBH, Laboratoire CSPBAT, CNRS (UMR 7244), 74 rue Marcel Cachin, F-93017 Bobigny, France.
authors.forename: Sadequa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sultana
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Djaker
authors.forename: Sanda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boca-Farcau
authors.forename: Milena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salerno
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Charnaux
authors.forename: Simion
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Astilean
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hlawaty
authors.forename: Marc Lamy
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: de la Chapelle
mesh_terms: D002478:Cells, Cultured; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000187:drug effects*; D006046:Gold / Q000633:toxicity*; D006801:Humans; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000633:toxicity* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D010316:Particle Size; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D006046:Gold