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Toxicity Studies of Fullerenes and Derivatives

  • Chapter
Bio-Applications of Nanoparticles

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 620))

Abstract

Due to their unique properties, fullerenes, a model of carbon-based nanoparticles, have attracted considerable interest in many fields of research including material science and biomedical applications. The potential and the growing use of fullerenes and their mass production have raised several questions about their safety and environmental impact. Available data clearly shows that pristine C60 has no acute or sub-acute toxicity in a large variety of living organisms, from bacteria and fungal to human leukocytes, and also in drosophila, mice, rats and guinea pigs. In contrast to chemically—either covalently or noncovalently—modified fullerenes, some C60 derivatives can be highly toxic. Furthermore, under light exposure, C60 is an efficient singlet oxygen sensitizer. Therefore, if pristine C60 is absolutely nontoxic under dark conditions, this is not the case under UV-Visible irradiation and in the presence of O2 where fullerene solutions can be highly toxic through 1 O2 formation.

This chapter offers a general review of the studies on the toxicity of [60] fullerence or C60, the most abundant fullerene, and its derivatives.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR CNRS 8612, Faculté de Pharmacie, Université Paris-Sud 11, 5, Rue J.-B. Clément, 92296, Châtenay-Malabry, France

    Jelena Kolosnjaj, Henri Szwarc & Fathi Moussa

  2. Pharmacy Department, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Jelena Kolosnjaj

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  1. Jelena Kolosnjaj
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  2. Henri Szwarc
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  1. Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, The Terrence Donnelly, Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, Materials Science and Engineering, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Warren C. W. Chan Ph.D.

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Kolosnjaj, J., Szwarc, H., Moussa, F. (2007). Toxicity Studies of Fullerenes and Derivatives. In: Chan, W.C.W. (eds) Bio-Applications of Nanoparticles. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 620. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-76713-0_13

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