Assessing toxicity of nanoparticles: In vitro and in vivo assays

Abstract

Nanoparticles are widely utilized in the fields of medicine and industry. Accordingly, it is vital to deliberately assess the toxicity of nanoparticles in the development of nanoparticle-related products and therapeutic agents. This chapter reviews in vitro and in vivo procedures for the assessment of the toxicity of nanoparticles. As the first step, various in vitro and in vivo procedures are listed and discussed with suggestions from various researchers. Furthermore, we discuss the issues regarding the determination of toxicity assays for the evaluation of the toxicity of nanoparticles. Especially, these assays are valuable tools to investigate the differential effects of nanoparticles of various sizes and different surface modification. We expect that this chapter can be a stepping stone for further discussion about the toxicity of nanoparticles and will help researchers to evaluate the toxicity of nanoparticles efficiently. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. All rights reserved.