Pharmacokinetics,clearance,and biosafety of polyethylene glycol-coated hollow gold nanospheres

Objective: gold nanoparticles have attracted enormous interest as potential theranostic agents. however,little is known about the long-term elimination and systemic toxicity of gold nanoparticles in the literature. hollow gold nanospheres (hauns) is a class of photothermal conducting agent that have shown promises in photoacoustic imaging,photothermal ablation therapy,and drug delivery. it's very necessary to make clear the biosafety of hauns for its further application.methods: we investigated the cytotoxicity,complement activation,and platelet aggregation of polyethylene glycol (peg)-coated hauns (peg-hauns,average diameter of 63 nm) in vitro and their pharmacokinetics,biodistribution,organ elimination,hematology,clinical chemistry,acute toxicity,and chronic toxicity in mice.results: peg-hauns did not induce detectable activation of the complement system and did not induce detectable platelet aggregation. the blood half-life of peg-hauns in mice was 8.19 ± 1.4 hr. the single effective dose of peg-hauns in photothermal ablation therapy was determined to be 12.5 mg/kg. peg-hauns caused no adverse effects after 10 daily intravenous injections over a 2-week period at a dose of 12.5 mg/kg per injection (accumulated dose: 125 mg/kg). quantitative analysis of the muscle,liver,spleen,and kidney revealed that the levels of au decreased 45.2%,28.6%,41.7%,and 40.8%,respectively,from day 14 to day 90 after the first intravenous injection,indicating that peg-hauns was slowly cleared from these organs in mice.conclusion: our data support the use of peg-hauns as a promising photothermal conducting agent. © 2014 you et al.; licensee biomed central ltd.