A study on the biocompatibility of surface-modified Au/Ag alloyed nanobox particles in zebrafish in terms of mortality rate, hatch rate and imaging of particle distribution behavior

Abstract

We report for the first time a study on the biocompatibility of the poly(ethylene glycol)-thiol (PEG)-coated Au/Ag alloyed nanobox (PC-ANB) particles in zebrafish. We measured the mortality rate and the hatch rate of the zebrafish embryos injected with the PC-ANB particles and observed the distribution of the PC-ANB particles in the zebrafish embryos at different stages of growth development. The results show that the PC-ANB particles have negligible toxicity to the zebrafish embryos even at extrahigh concentration (1.2mgml−1), while uncoated Ag nanoparticles, used in the form of nanospheres or nanoplates, were found to cause embryo deformation or even death. Additionally, we have investigated the distribution of the PC-ANB particles within the zebrafish in the interest of studying their behavior in the zebrafish using imaging. For this, we used the three-photon luminescence imaging technique and it has been found that the PC-ANB particles mainly assemble in the backside muscle tissues of the zebrafish, suggesting that the PC-ANB particles are mostly metabolized out after about 96 hours of growth development.