In vitro toxicological assessment of gadolinium (III) chloride in V79–4 fibroblasts

Abstract Background Rare earth minerals of the lanthanide series are widely used in the field of medical and clinical application. Gadolinium (Gd), the most preferred rare earth mineral is frequently used as magnets, superconductors and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent. Increasing production of gadolinium waste, known potent toxicity of this element and lack of information on its Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) prompts health risk assessment on gadolinium. In this study, cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of Gadolinium (III) chloride (GdCl3) were investigated using MTT assay, Alkaline Comet assay and Micronucleus assay, respectively. Results Our results demonstrated that the viability of GdCl3 treated V79–4 cells was significantly (p 0.05) DNA damage both in the presence and absence of metabolic activation. However, it induced significant (p