In vitro toxicity and uptake of magnetic nanorods

TL;DR

This study assesses the internalization and biocompatibility of magnetic nanorods made from iron oxide nanoparticles, demonstrating their low toxicity and cellular uptake in fibroblast cells, with potential for magnetic manipulation.

Contribution

It introduces a method to synthesize magnetic nanorods and evaluates their in vitro toxicity and cellular uptake, highlighting their biocompatibility and magnetic properties.

Findings

Nanorods are biocompatible with 100% cell viability.

Approximately one-third of nanorods are internalized by cells.

Nanorods retain superparamagnetic properties and can be manipulated magnetically.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the internalization and cytotoxicity of nanostructured materials having the form of elongated rods, with diameter of 200 nm and lengths 1 - 10 {\mu}m. The rods were made from the controlled aggregation of sub-10 nm iron oxide nanoparticles. Recently, we have shown that the nanorods inherited the superparamagnetic property of the particles. These rods can actually be moved by the application of an external magnetic field. Here we evaluate the in vitro toxicity of the magnetic nanorods by using MTT assays on NIH/3T3 mouse fibroblasts. The toxicity assays revealed that the nanorods are biocompatible, as exposed cells remained 100% viable relative to controls over a period of a few days. Optical microscopy allow to visualize the rods inside the cells and to determine their number per cell. Roughly 1/3 of the total incubated rods were uptaken by the fibroblasts.