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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Toxicology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
TOXICOLOGICAL HIGHLIGHT |
In Vitro Cytotoxicity of Nanoparticles in Mammalian Germ-Line Stem Cell
Dep. Fisiologia, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mpvinardellmh@ub.edu.
Received September 21, 2005; accepted September 21, 2005
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
Nanotechnology involves the creation and manipulation of materials at nanoscale levels to create products that exhibit novel properties. There are important applications of nanoscience in biology and biotechnology, and nanotechnology offers new tools to biologists (Whitesides, 2003
).
Nevertheless, despite the increased interest in the development of nanoparticles, few studies address their potential toxicity. The rapidly developing field of nanotechnology is likely to become yet another source of human exposure to nanoparticles by different routes: inhalation, ingestion, dermal, and injection. Regulatory agencies, researchers, and health and environmental watchdogs are assessing how nanoscale materials affect human health and the environment (Service, 2004).
Similarly, the characteristic biokinetic behavior of nanoparticles