不同表面修饰的多壁碳纳米管对小鼠免疫功能的影响

In recent years, with the development of modification techniques, their potential in biomedical application has been rapidly explored. Therefore, it is significant to evaluate the bio-security of CNTs. However, their potential effects on other immune system also deserve study but are rarely reported. The present work studied the immunotoxicity of MWCNTs using the BALB/c mouse model. The dose-effects of immunological effects and immunotoxicity of MWCNTs via repeated intravenous injections of p?MWCNTs and MWCNTs?PEG were systematically studied. Standard measurements of systemic immune response, including organ weights and peripheral blood cell phenotypes were used. In addition, the changes of the humoral immune and cellular immunity were also examined. The immunological effects of p?MWCNTs and MWCNTs?PEG in mice were further studied and compared. In vivo studies showed that comparing with MWCNTs?PEG，p?MWCNTs increased the coefficients of spleen and thymus and induced the mitochondrial damage in immune organ. The proportions of CD4+ and CD8+ T?lymphocyte subseted both in the medium- and high- dose p?MWCNTs groups were higher than those in the control group with a certain dose-response relationship. The humoral immune function were suppressed after exposure to p?MWCNT. These results showed the immune response of mice after p?MWCNTs exposure with dose-dependent manners. After exposure to low dose, p?MWCNTs induced the immune activation. However, the immune suppression was observed when the dose is greater than 0.5mg/kg. Immune function measurements on spleen-derived cells showed suppressed T-cell-dependent antibody response and decreased proliferation of T cells following mitogen stimulation. PEG modification can significantly reduce the immunotoxicity comparing with p?MWCNTs in the same dose. Further work is necessary to place these results in context and to elucidate a mechanism for this response further.