Toxicity of Carbon Nanomaterials—Towards Reliable Viability Assessment via New Approach in Flow Cytometry

The scope of application of carbon nanomaterials in biomedical, environmental and industrial fields is recently substantially increasing. Since in vitro toxicity testing is the first essential step for any commercial usage, it is crucial to have a reliable method to analyze the potentially harmful effects of carbon nanomaterials. Even though researchers already reported the interference of carbon nanomaterials with common toxicity assays, there is still, unfortunately, a large number of studies that neglect this fact. In this study, we investigated interference of four bio-promising carbon nanomaterials (graphene acid (GA), cyanographene (GCN), graphitic carbon nitride (g-C(3)N(4)) and carbon dots (QCDs)) in commonly used LIVE/DEAD assay. When a standard procedure was applied, materials caused various types of interference. While positively charged g-C(3)N(4) and QCDs induced false results through the creation of free agglomerates and intrinsic fluorescence properties, negatively charged GA and GCN led to false signals due to the complex quenching effect of the fluorescent dye of a LIVE/DEAD kit. Thus, we developed a new approach using a specific gating strategy based on additional controls that successfully overcame all types of interference and lead to reliable results in LIVE/DEAD assay. We suggest that the newly developed procedure should be a mandatory tool for all in vitro flow cytometry assays of any class of carbon nanomaterials.