A Simple in vivo Assay Using Amphipods for the Evaluation of Potential Biocompatible Metal-Organic Frameworks

Abstract

In this study, the application of amphipods <i>in vivo</i> assays was evaluated. The main aim of this work was to check the potential use of this model in biocompatibility assessments of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Hence, six different MOFs were synthesized and the <i>in vitro</i> and <i>ex vivo</i> cytotoxicity was first assessed using a colorimetric assay and a macrophage cell line. Obtained results were compared to validate the <i>in vivo</i> toxicity tests carried out using amphipods and increasing concentrations of the different MOFs. Amphipods do not require the need of ethics approval and also are less expensive to keep than conventional <i>in vivo</i> models, showing its potential as a fast and reliable platform in toxicity studies. The obtained results showed that the amphipods based-assay was simple, easy to replicate and yielded toxicity data corresponding to the type of MOFs tested. In addition, it was observed that only CIM-80(Al) and CIM-84(Zr) did not show any toxicity to the animals at the different tested concentrations. Therefore, the developed <i>in vivo</i> model could be applied as a high-throughput toxicity screening method to evaluate the toxicity of numerous materials, chemicals and therapeutic agents among others.