The research and application of nanotechnology have grown tremendously in the last decade. Surface coating agents, or surfactants, are an integral part of most nanoparticles for shape and size control during synthesis and surface protection and stability. Therefore, the study of the toxicity of nanoparticles must consider the effects of the surfactants used. Here we report the <i>in vitro</i> cytotoxicity of both cationic (alkyl ammonium salts) and anionic (alkyl sulfates) surfactants in two cell lines: human skin keratinocytes (HaCaT) and blood T lymphocytes (TIB-152) with the consideration of chain length, number of chains and charge. Both cationic and anionic surfactants with chains length of ≤ 8 carbons are essentially not cytotoxic on both cell lines. The cytotoxicity of the surfactants increases with the increase of the chain length from 10 to 12 carbons, and then levels off from 12 to 18 carbons except for the cationic surfactants on HaCaT cells where the leveling off chain length is 14 carbons. The cationic didodecyl (12) surfactant is slightly more cytotoxic than the mono-dodecyl surfactant, while the cationic dioctadecyl (18) surfactant is not cytotoxic due to micelle formation in the concentration range tested. For HaCaT cells, the cationic surfactants are more cytotoxic than the anionic surfactants with the same chain length, but for TIB-152 cells, both cationic and anionic surfactants are on the same cytotoxicity level. Both of these two classes of surfactants are more cytotoxic to TIB-152 cells than to HaCaT cells. There appears to be a threshold concentration for some surfactants that cytotoxicity is not observed until a certain concentration, where it appears suddenly.

Effect of chain length, number of chains, and charge on the in vitro cytotoxicty of surface coating agents used for nanoparticles

249th National Meeting (2015)

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