In vivo carcinogenicity study of silver nanoparticles in transgenic rasH2 mice by one single-dose intravenous administration

Benefited from their broad-spectrum antimicrobial property, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been widely used in various daily life and medical products. Consequently, the bio-safety of AgNPs, especially long-term in vivo biological effects is of more and more importance. However, there are no correlated publications about AgNP carcinogenicity at present. Thus, in this study, we have investigated the potential carcinogenicity of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-coated AgNPs with an intermediate size (diameter ~ 42.5 nm). The C57- ras transgenic mouse model (CB6F1 Tg mice) harboring human c-Ha-ras gene was used to shorten the duration of in vivo experiments from 2 years to 22 weeks. CB6F1 Tg mice were intravenously injected by different single doses of AgNPs (0.4, 4, and 20 mg/kg body weight) during the 22-week carcinogenicity study. There were no obvious AgNP-related neoplastic lesions by microscope examination and no increase in the incidence of non-neoplastic lesions in the AgNP-treated mice in our study. Overall, these results indicate that AgNPs (≤ 20 mg/kg) do not cause carcinogenesis in CB6F1 Tg mice via a single-dose intravenous injection. This provides useful toxicological information and is of great importance to more applications of AgNPs in the future.