THE EFFECT OF 92-DAY SUBACUTE EXPOSURE TO SINGLE-WALLED CARBON NANOTUBES ON TRACE ELEMENT HOMEOSTASIS IN WISTAR RATS

OSUNT90T (R) single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were administered with drinking water at doses of 0 (control), 0.01, 0.1, 1.0, and 10 mg/kg body weight (bw) to juvenile male Wistar rats for 100 days. The levels of 17 chemical elements (Ag, Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, V, and Zn) in the liver, kidneys, spleen, brain, and testes were assessed using ICP-MS. A decrease of the content of certain chemical elements, including As, Pb, Cd, Cs, and Se, in the organs of animals that received SWCNTs and an increase of vanadium (V) and silver (Ag) levels in the kidneys were detected. The absence of a dependence between most of these effects and the nanomaterial dose along with preferential manifestation of the effects at low (0.01 and 0.1 mg/kg bw) doses are indicative of a complex systemic biochemical mechanism, apparently dependent on agglomeration at high concentrations, underlying the effects of SWCNTs on element homeostasis.