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Comparative study on the toxicity of biosynthesized and chemically synthesized gold nanoparticles

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Abstract

There has been a rush into the green synthesis of nanoparticles in recent years. However, the direct comparison of the toxicity of biosynthesized nanoparticles and chemically synthesized nanoparticles was seldom reported. Herein, a green route for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles (Bio-AuNPs) was developed by incubation of gold precursors with Oocystis sp. algal extract. The toxicity of Bio-AuNPs and citrate-stabilized AuNPs (Chem-AuNPs) was further compared by using another microalgae Chlorella vulgaris and its higher trophic level Daphnia magna as the model organisms. The exposure of Chem-AuNPs induced the aggregation of algal cells and dramatically inhibited the growth of C. vulgaris at 5 mg/L, while no significant inhibitory effect was observed for Bio-AuNPs at 20 mg/L. Additionally, the 24 and 48 h LC50 of Bio-AuNPs to D. magna were much higher than those of Chem-AuNPs. The data directly demonstrated that Bio-AuNPs have better biosafety than Chem-AuNPs, making them potentially useful in biomedical fields and cancer therapy and diagnosis.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21620102008, 22076198).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hebei Key Lab of Power Plant Flue Gas Multi-Pollutants Control, Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Baoding, 071000, China

    Wenjing Zhou & Chungang Yuan

  2. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P. O. Box 2871, Beijing, 100085, China

    Wenjing Zhou, Rui Yang, Sujuan Yu & Jingfu Liu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Rui Yang, Sujuan Yu & Jingfu Liu

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  1. Wenjing Zhou
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Correspondence to Sujuan Yu.

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Zhou, W., Yang, R., Yu, S. et al. Comparative study on the toxicity of biosynthesized and chemically synthesized gold nanoparticles. Chem. Pap. 77, 1999–2007 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02602-5

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