Comprehensive Evaluation of the Toxicity and Biosafety of Plasma Polymerized Nanoparticles

The rapid growth of nanoparticle-based therapeutics has underpinned significant developments in nanomedicine, which aim to overcome the limitations imposed by conventional therapies. Establishing the safety of new nanoparticle formulations is the first important step on the pathway to clinical translation. We have recently shown that plasma-polymerized nanoparticles (PPNs) are highly efficient nanocarriers and a viable, cost-effective alternative to conventional chemically synthesized nanoparticles. Here, we present the first comprehensive toxicity and biosafety study of PPNs using both established in vitro cell models and in vivo models. Overall, we show that PPNs were extremely well tolerated by all the cell types tested, significantly outperforming commercially available lipid-based nanoparticles (lipofectamine) used at the manufacturer's recommended dosage. Supporting the in vitro data, the systemic toxicity of PPNs was negligible in BALB/c mice following acute and repeated tail-vein intravenous injections. PPNs were remarkably well tolerated in mice without any evidence of behavioral changes, weight loss, significant changes to the hematological profile, or signs of histological damage in tissues. PPNs were tolerated at extremely high doses without animal mortality observed at 6000 mg/kg and 48,000 mg/kg for acute and repeated-injection regimens, respectively. Our findings demonstrate the safety of PPNs in biological systems, adding to their future potential in biomedical applications.