Rational engineering of physicochemical properties of nanomaterials for biomedical applications with nanotoxicological perspectives.

P N Navya,Hemant Kumar Daima

doi:10.1186/s40580-016-0064-z

Abstract

Innovative engineered nanomaterials are at the leading edge of rapidly emerging fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine. Meticulous synthesis, unique physicochemical properties, manifestation of chemical or biological moieties on the surface of materials make engineered nanostructures suitable for a variety of biomedical applications. Besides, tailored nanomaterials exhibit entirely novel therapeutic applications with better functionality, sensitivity, efficiency and specificity due to their customized unique physicochemical and surface properties. Additionally, such designer made nanomaterials has potential to generate series of interactions with various biological entities including DNA, proteins, membranes, cells and organelles at nano-bio interface. These nano-bio interactions are driven by colloidal forces and predominantly depend on the dynamic physicochemical and surface properties of nanomaterials. Nevertheless, recent development and atomic scale tailoring of various physical, chemical and surface properties of nanomaterials is promising to dictate their interaction in anticipated manner with biological entities for biomedical applications. As a result, rationally designed nanomaterials are in extensive demand for bio-molecular detection and diagnostics, therapeutics, drug and gene delivery, fluorescent labelling, tissue engineering, biochemical sensing and other pharmaceuticals applications. However, toxicity and risk associated with engineered nanomaterials is rather unclear or not well understood; which is gaining considerable attention and the field of nanotoxicology is evolving promptly. Therefore, this review explores current knowledge of articulate engineering of nanomaterials for biomedical applications with special attention on potential toxicological perspectives.

Highlights

1 Introduction Nanostructures are engineered assemblies of materials with at least one dimension equivalent to 100 nm or less as defined by the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). These nano scale materials are significantly important and increasingly being employed for commercial purposes in various sectors, wherein some of the advanced nanomaterials are at the leading edge of nascent fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine
Has given ability to rationally design a variety of nanomaterials and manipulate their chemical, physical and potential biological properties for drug screening, gene delivery, diagnosis/monitoring, drug delivery, detection, tissue engineering and other biomedical applications
The often ignored toxicological concerns of engineered nanomaterials need urgent attention and it is essential to carry out fundamental research to address these issues

Summary

Introduction

Nanostructures are engineered assemblies of materials with at least one dimension equivalent to 100 nm or less as defined by the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). These nano scale materials are significantly important and increasingly being employed for commercial purposes in various sectors, wherein some of the advanced nanomaterials are at the leading edge of nascent fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Due to the above stated unusual physicochemical belongings, nanomaterials differ considerably from the bulk material of the alike composition, permitting them to execute remarkable feats of better functionality, sensitivity, efficiency and specificity in terms of their therapeutic or biomedical applications [1, 8, 9]. Such transformed characteristics can permit control over therapeutic agents/drugs in terms of their solubility, blood pool retention times, controlled release over short or long durations, environmentally triggered controlled release or definite site-targeted delivery [1, 4, 5, 8, 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]

Objectives

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Conclusion