Generation of reactive oxygen species from porous silicon microparticles in cell culture medium

Suet Low, Keryn Williams, Leigh Canham, Nicolas Voelcker

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    50 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Nanostructured (porous) silicon is a promising biodegradable biomaterial, which is being intensively researched as a tissue engineering scaffold and drugdelivery vehicle. Here, we tested the biocompatibility of non-treated and thermally-oxidized porous silicon particles using an indirect cell viability assay. Initial direct cell culture on porous silicon determined that human lens epithelial cells only poorly adhered to non-treated porous silicon. Using an indirect cell culture assay, we found that non-treated microparticles caused complete cell death, indicating that these particles generated a toxic product in cell culture medium. In contrast, thermally-oxidized microparticles did not reduce cell viability significantly. We found evidence for the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by means of the fluorescent probe 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescin. Our results suggest that non-treated porous silicon microparticles produced ROS, which interacted with the components of the cell culture medium, leading to the formation of cytotoxic species. Oxidation of porous silicon microparticles not only mitigated, but also abolished the toxic effects.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1124-1131
    Number of pages8
    JournalJournal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A
    Volume93
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2010

    Keywords

    • Biodegradable materials
    • Microparticles
    • Porous silicon
    • Reactive oxygen species

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