Comparative Toxicity Studies of Ultra-Pure Ag, Au, Co, and Cu Nanoparticles Generated by Laser Ablation in Biocompatible Aqueous Solution

Nanoparticles (NPs) are increasingly used in consumer products, which have aroused many concerns and debates regarding their fate in biological systems from a point of their safety/toxicity. Although a number of studies on the biological effects of NPs have been published, these are often complicated by the possible toxicity of conventional NPs, caused by contamination with chemical precursors or additives during their synthesis and/or purification procedures. To explicitly understand the toxicity basis of NPs, it is necessary to directly address a main problem related to their intrinsic/inherent toxicity and/or incompatibility with biological objects. The present study is designed to take advantage of a novel laser-assisted method called laser ablation to generate Ag, Au, Co, and Cu NPs in biocompatible aqueous solution, and to evaluate the toxicity of the resulting ultra-pure NPs. Our results show that the ultra-pure NPs with nascent surfaces possess moderate cytotoxicity to human cells in a cell-dependent manner.