Marta d’Amora1, Juergen Bartelmess2†, Giuseppe Sancataldo1,3, Francesca Cella Zanacchi1,4§, Alberto Diaspro1,4, Silvia Giordani2* 1 Nanoscopy, Nanophysics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, Genoa, 16163, Italy. 2 Nano Carbon Materials, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163, Genoa, Italy 3 Dibris, University of Genoa, Via All'Opera Pia 13, 16145 Genoa, Italy 4 NIC@IIT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163, Genoa, Italy † Current affiliation: Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Division 1.9, Richard-Willstaedter-Str. 11, 12489 Berlin, Germany. §Current affiliation: The Institute of Photonics Sciences (ICFO) Av. Carl Friedrich Gauss, 3, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain.  Functionalized carbon nano-onions (f-CNOs) have many attractive properties for biomedical applications such as high cellular uptake, low cytotoxicity and weak inflammatory potential [1]. To address the ecological effects of f-CNOs, we employ zebrafish (Danio rerio), as vertebrate model, to examine such effects on embryonic development. The toxicity parameters evaluated include survival rate, hatching rate, heartbeats, frequency of movements and possible presence of different types of malformations. Moreover, the biodistribution in zebrafish larvae of boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY) functionalized CNOs, suitable for high resolution imaging [2], is studied by means of inverted selective plane illumination microscopy (iSPIM) [3]. This technique has been shown as an improved imaging tool for 3D imaging of thick samples, such as zebrafish embryos. Our results contribute to the current understanding in the biosafety of carbon nanomaterials.[1] M. Yang, K. Flavin, I. Kopf, G. Radics, C.H. A. Hearnden, G.J. McManus, A. Villalta-Cerdas, L.A. Echegoyen, S. Giordani, E.C. Lavelle "Chemical surface functionalization of carbon nanoparticles modulates inflammatory cell recruitment and NLRP3 inflammasome activation", Small, 9, 4194-4206 (2013). [2] J. Bartelmess, E. De Luca, A. Signorelli, M. Baldrighi, M. Becce, R. Brescia, V. Nardone, E. Parisini, L. Echegoyen, P.P. Pompa, S. Giordani "Boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY) functionalized carbon nano-onions for high resolution cellular imaging", Nanoscale, 6, 13761-13769 (2014). [3] Z. Lavagnino, G. Sancataldo, M. d’Amora, P. Follert, D. De Pietri Tonelli, A. Diaspro, F. Cella Zanacchi "4D (x-y-z-t) imaging of thick biological samples by means of Two-Photon inverted Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy (2PE-iSPIM) ", Scientific reports, 6, 23923 (2016).  Marta d' Amora is a postdoctoral researcher at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa, Italy, under the supervision of Prof. Alberto Diaspro. Her primary research interest is in the field of nanotoxicology/nanotechnology. Her project focuses in a careful in vivo evaluation of potential toxic effects of different classes of nanomaterials on zebrafish during the development and in clarifying the possible mechanisms at the molecular basis of this toxicity by means of advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques. Previously she graduated in Molecular and Cellular Biology (2007) and she achieved a Ph.D. in Neurochemistry and Neurobiology (2012) from the University of Genoa studying different enzymatic activities in mice brain during development. After her Ph.D., she spent 6 months as fellow at IIT working the investigation of the photophysical and cellular properties of novel photo-activatable compounds suitable for staining cellular organelles in vivo for super-resolution microscopy. |
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