Biodegradation of Magnetic Nanoparticles in Mouse Liver From Combined Analysis of Mössbauer and Magnetization Data

The potential of Mössbauer spectroscopy to study the biodegradation process of magnetic nanoparticles in vivo was demonstrated. Magnetic nanoparticles in form of ferrofluid were administrated to mice. The Mössbauer study of the mice liver samples has shown that in addition to the sextet of lines related to the injected nanoparticles there appears an intense doublet of lines in the spectra with increasing times after the particles administration. Further analysis showed that the doublet consists of two components related to the formation of iron-containing proteins and superparamagnetic behavior of the injected nanoparticles. Using combined analysis of three Mössbauer spectra taken at different external conditions and magnetization curves measured for each sample these components were separated and the evolution with time of each component was characterized.