Aluminum speciation and morphological differentiation in murine neuroblastoma cells

Aluminum is known as a neurotoxic metal ion in experimental animals as well as in humans. The present study was carried out to determine whether and how the physicochemical properties of the metal coordination sphere (metal speciation) can influence the differentiation of murine neuroblastoma cells as has been observed previously in this laboratory (1). Results herein reported indicate that while the aluminum lipophilic species--particularly aluminum acetylacetonate (Alacac3) and aluminum maltolate (Almalt3), both hydrolitically stable and differently lipophilic--are both rather cytotoxic, metal hydrophilic species show different neuritogenic properties indicating the ability of Al(III), when diversely coordinated, to produce different biological effects.