CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The use of nanotechnology in medicine is based on the preparation of nanostructures, such as nanoparticles (NPs). They can be targeted to specific tumor tissues and enhance the intracellular activation properties.In this context, we prepared core/shell gold/Albumin NPs (Alb/Au-NPs) by crosslinking with ionizing radiation. Preparation of NPs containing an inorganic core, such as gold, can be very useful for NP tracking and detection. Also, albumin is a high biocompatible, biodegradable and non-antigenic protein, as well as malleable. Recently we have advanced in the study of free radicals formed during the irradiation of NPs in the presence of ethanol, and the byproducts of this irradiation. The ionizing irradiation (0.5 to 5 kGy, gamma rays) of binary aqueous ethanol mixtures leads to three main final products: molecular hydrogen, 2,3-butandiol, and acetaldehyde as a consequence of dimerization or dismutation reactions. The presence of butandiol was confirmed by FT-IR spectroscopy, whereas the presence of acetaldehyde was confirmed by a colorimetric method.Based on this, the main goal of this work was to study the toxicity of Au-NPs combined with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and human serum albumin (HSA) in zebrafish larvae. To carry out this work, irradiated, non-irradiated and desalted irradiated Alb/Au-NPs were tested in zebrafish larvae. The spontaneous movement, viability, heart rate and morphological changes of 120 hpf zebrafish larvae were studied as parameters of toxicity. Non-irradiated and desalted irradiated Alb/Au-NPs exhibited no significant variations in the studied parameters. On the contrary, larvae exposed to irradiated Alb/Au-NPs showed a significant decrease in the spontaneous movement until 24 hours post incubation (hpi) and mortality at 48 hpi. For those above, the final products obtained after the ionizing irradiation, which are isolated after desalination, might be responsible for larvae toxicity.