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Carboxylated multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT-COOH) presents unique properties due to nanoscale dimensions and permits a broad range of applications in different fields, such as bone tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, the cytocompatibility of MWCNT-COOH with human stem cells is poorly understood. Thus, studies elucidating how MWCNT-COOH affects human stem cell viability are essential to a safer application of nanotechnologies. Using stem cells from the human exfoliated deciduous teeth model, we have evaluated the effects of MWCNT-COOH on cell viability, oxidative cell stress, and DNA integrity. Results demonstrated that despite the decreased metabolism of mitochondria, MWCNT-COOH had no toxicity against stem cells. Cells maintained viability after MWCNT-COOH exposure. MWCNT-COOH did not alter the superoxide dismutase activity and did not cause genotoxic effects. The present findings are relevant to the potential application of MWCNT-COOH in the tissue engineering and regenerative medicine fields., (© 2021 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

Development of RNA interference (RNAi) technology utilizing short interfering RNA sequences (siRNA) has focused on creating methods for delivering siRNAs to cells and for enhancing siRNA stability in vitro and in vivo. Here, we describe a novel approach for siRNA cellular delivery using siRNA coiling into carboxyl-functionalized single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). The CNT-siRNA delivery system successfully demonstrates nonspecific toxicity and transfection efficiency greater than 95%. This approach offers the potential for siRNA delivery into different types of cells, including hard-to-transfect cells, such as neuronal cells and cardiomyocytes. We also tested the CNT-siRNA system in a non-metastatic human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (SKHep1). In all types of cells used in this work the CNT-siRNA delivery system showed high efficiency and apparent no side effects for various in vitro applications.