Journal of Nucleic Acids

Review Article

Current Studies into the Genotoxic Effects of Nanomaterials

Table 1

Selected in vivo genotoxicity studies on NMs.


Type of NP	Size and form	Experimental design/genotoxic tests	Summary of findings	References

C60 fullerenes	spheres	Bone marrow micronucleus test on ICR mice	No in vivo clastogenic ability of up to 88 mg/kg	Shinohara et al.; 2009 [17]

C60 Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT)	spheres	Oral administration at doses of 0.064 and 0.64 mg/kg of body weight. 8-OHdG analysis	Both NPs were associated with increase in 8-OHdG in liver and lungs. No impairment of DNA repair system	Folkmann et al.; 2009 [18]

SWCNT Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT)	nanotubes	Oral administration and urinary samples collected for Ames test	No urinary mutagenicity	Szendi and Varga 2008 [19]

Carbon black (CB) C60 SWCNT AuNP Cd quantum dots (QDs)	nanospheres	Apo E knockout mice Timepoints at 3 and 24 hours; NP administered by instillation	Increase in cytokines gene expression. ApoE −/− mice are sensitive to particle induced inflammation. DNA damage in order of. QDCBSWCNT, Au	Jacobsen et al.; 2009 [20]

	anatase/rutile 21 nm	TiO₂ ingested through drinking water at concentrations of 60, 120, 300, 600 g/mL. Comet assay MN test gamma-H2AX immunostaining 8-OHdG analysis	Increase in 8-OHdG and gamma-H2AX foci. indicative of DNA double-strand breaks. MN. shows increase in DNA deletions.	Trouiller et al.; 2009 [21]

Ag	60 nm	Oral administration in Sprague-Dawley rats over a period of 28 days; doses at 30, 300 and 1000 mg/kg.	No significant genotoxicity in bone marrow. (micronucleated erythrocytes)	Kim et al.; 2008 [22]

Silica	amorphous 37 and 83 nm	Inhalation study where mice were exposed to 3.7 × 10⁷ and 1.8 × 10⁸ particles/cm³	No significant pulmonary, inflammatory, genotoxic or adverse lung histopathological effects	Sayes et al.; 2010 [23]