Toxicity Evaluation of Graphene Oxide in Kidneys of Sprague-Dawley Rats

Anita K. Patlolla, Jonathan Randolph, S. Anitha Kumari and Paul B. Tchounwou
Additional contact information
Anita K. Patlolla: NIH—Center for Environmental Health, College of Science Engineering and Technology, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA
Jonathan Randolph: CESTEME Program Teacher from Jackson Public School, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA
S. Anitha Kumari: Osmania University College for Women, Hyderabad 500001, India
Paul B. Tchounwou: NIH—Center for Environmental Health, College of Science Engineering and Technology, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Recently, graphene and graphene-related materials have attracted a great deal of attention due their unique physical, chemical, and biocompatibility properties and to their applications in biotechnology and medicine. However, the reports on the potential toxicity of graphene oxide (GO) in biological systems are very few. The present study investigated the response of kidneys in male Sprague-Dawley rats following exposure to 0, 10, 20 and 40 mg/Kg GO for five days. The results showed that administration of GOs significantly increased the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase in a dose-dependent manner in the kidneys compared with control group. Serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen levels were also significantly increased in rats intoxicated with GO compared with the control group. There was a significant elevation in the levels of hydrogen peroxide and lipid hydro peroxide in GOs-treated rats compared to control animals. Histopathological evaluation showed significant morphological alterations of kidneys in GO-treated rats compared to controls. Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate that GO is nephrotoxic and its toxicity may be mediated through oxidative stress. In the present work, however, we only provided preliminary information on toxicity of GO in rats; further experimental verification and mechanistic elucidation are required before GO widely used for biomedical applications.

Keywords: graphene oxide; serum creatine; blood urea nitrogen; catalase; glutathione peroxidase; superoxide dismutase; lipid hydroperoxide; Sprague-Dawley rats (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/4/380/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/4/380/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:4:p:380-:d:66681

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().