Abstract
Over the last decades there has been a tremendous volume of research efforts focused on engineering silver-based (nano)materials. The interest in silver has been mostly driven by the element capacity to kill pathogenic bacteria. In this context, the main area of application has been medical devices that are at significant risk of becoming colonized by bacteria and subsequently infected. However, silver nanomaterials have been incorporated in a number of other commercial products which may or may not benefit from antibacterial protection. The rapid expansion of such products raises important questions about a possible adverse influence on human health. This review focuses on examining currently available literature and summarizing the current state of knowledge of the impact of silver (nano)materials on the immune system. The review also looks at various surface modification strategies used to generate silver-based nanomaterials and the immunomodulatory potential of these materials. It also highlights the immune response triggered by various silver-coated implantable devices and provides guidance and perspective towards engineering silver nanomaterials for modulating immunological consequences.
Highlights
Engineered nanomaterials have witnessed a dramatic growth in the last few years to meet the growing demand for novel technologies in both the scientific and industrial sectors [1,2,3,4]
The possible signaling pathways that may be activated by silver nanomaterials to trigger pro-inflammatory cytokine release are shown in Figure 3 and include Nuclear Factor-kβ (NF-kβ), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JKK), or Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MKK) pathways
We provide a critical overview of the current state of knowledge of the effect of silver nanomaterials on inflammatory responses
Summary
Engineered nanomaterials have witnessed a dramatic growth in the last few years to meet the growing demand for novel technologies in both the scientific and industrial sectors [1,2,3,4]. The possibility to manipulate the unique features of these materials at the nanoscale through advanced physical, chemical, and engineering approaches brings an additional dimension of interest [5,6,7,8,9,10] These advances have resulted in a vast library of nanomaterials having many unusual properties [11,12,13,14]. Some of the engineered nanomaterials have been widely used in a broad range of consumer products in fields such as optics [15], electronics [16], personal care [17], and medicine [18] Examples of such materials include metal nanoparticles (NPs), metal oxides, semiconductors, and/or carbon-based nanomaterials and many others [19,20,21,22,23].
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