Acute and subacute toxicity studies of Pluronic P85/poly (lactic acid) nanoparticles in mice

The objective of the present reported study was to evaluate the oral toxicity of poly (lactic acid)-b-Pluronic-b-poly (lactic acid) (PLA-P85-PLA) nanoparticles (NPs) so as to demonstrate their applicability for drug delivery applications. In acute oral toxicity studies, the animals were fed with 0.4 ml PLA-P85-PLA NPs solution in different concentrations (low concentration: 20 mg/l, intermediate concentration: 100 mg/l and higher concentration: 500 mg/l) for 14 days; no deaths or treatment related complications were observed even in the higher concentration treatment. In case of the subacute oral toxicity test, the NPs were administered orally to mice for a period of 28 days. At the end of the study, blood samples were collected for biochemical analysis. For histopathological analysis, organs of the animals were weighed and processed. All the animals survived during the study, with no significant changes in clinical signs, body weight, feed consumption, biochemistry parameters, organ weights and histopathological findings. These results demonstrate that PLA-P85-PLA NPs produced no treatment related toxicity in mice following oral administration, thus, they can be exploited for potential therapeutic applications.