Highly Catalytic Nanodots with Renal Clearance for Radiation Protection

TL;DR

This study introduces ultrasmall MoS2 nanodots as effective, low-toxicity radioprotectants that can be rapidly cleared from the body, significantly improving survival rates after radiation exposure.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel design of ultrasmall, catalytically active MoS2 nanodots with renal clearance, demonstrating their efficacy as radioprotectants in vivo.

Findings

Increased survival rate of mice to 79% after radiation exposure.

Rapid urinary excretion with over 80% eliminated in 24 hours.

No noticeable toxicity observed up to 30 days.

Abstract

Ionizing radiation (gamma and x-ray) is widely used in industry and medicine, but it can also pose a significant hazardous effect on health and induce cancer, physical deformity and even death, due to DNA damages and invasion of free radicals. There is therefore an urgent unmet demand in designing highly efficient radioprotectants with synergetic integration of effective renal clearance and low toxicity. In this study, we designed ultrasmall (sub-5 nm) highly catalytically active and cysteine-protected MoS2 dots as radioprotectants and investigated their application in protection against ionizing radiation. In vivo preclinical studies showed that the surviving fraction of MoS2-treated mice can appreciably increase to up to 79 % when they were exposed to high-energy ionizing radiation. Furthermore, MoS2 dots can contribute in cleaning up the accumulated free radicals within the body, repairing DNA damages and recovering all vital chemical and biochemical indicators, suggesting their unique role as free radical scavengers. MoS2 dots showed rapid and efficient urinary excretion with more than 80 % injected dose (I.D.) eliminated from the body after 24 hours due to their ultrasmall hydrodynamic size and did not cause any noticeable toxic responses up to 30 days.