In Vivo Genotoxicity of Gold Nanorods in Mouse Bone Marrow Compared with Cyclophosphamide

Gold nanorods (GNRs) are now under extensive investigation for biomedical applications. The in vivo genotoxic profile GNRs are not elucidated yet, therefore we investigated it in comparison with one of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents, cyclophosphamide (CP), in a mice model. PEGylated-GNRs (50 nm) were injected to Balb/C mice triple times, while CP-treated mice were treated once and the bone marrow cells (BMCs) were collected after 21 days. Chromosome aberrations, mitotic index, sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs), replicative index, micronucleus (MN) and DNA damage using comet assay were investigated. GNRs induced chromosome aberrations including- and excluding-gaps significantly at p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively, however CP resulted in a higher significant increase in both types with p < 0.001. The percentage of SCEs / cell was not affected by GNRs treatment, while it was extremely significant with CP. Both mitotic activity and proliferative index were reduced dramatically with both of GNRs and CP. The recorded MN were lower in GNRs- than CP-treated mice. The percentage DNA damage, tail length and tail moment were higher in CP than GNRs. In conclusion, CP induced extreme genotoxicity more than GNRs. Both of GNRs and CP induced DNA damage. The study indicated the advantage of lower GNRs genotoxicity than that of CP. After 21 days, one injection of CP led to extreme persistent genotoxic effect more than that of multiple injections of GNRs.