Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2013 Jun 3;10(6):2093-110.
doi: 10.1021/mp300697h. Epub 2013 Mar 21.

Nanoparticle characterization: state of the art, challenges, and emerging technologies

Eun Jung Cho  1 , Hillary Holback, Karen C Liu, Sara A Abouelmagd, Joonyoung Park, Yoon Yeo
Affiliations
Review

Nanoparticle characterization: state of the art, challenges, and emerging technologies

Eun Jung Cho et al. Mol Pharm. .

Abstract

Nanoparticles have received enormous attention as a promising tool to enhance target-specific drug delivery and diagnosis. Various in vitro and in vivo techniques are used to characterize a new system and predict its clinical efficacy. These techniques enable efficient comparison across nanoparticles and facilitate a product optimization process. On the other hand, we recognize their limitations as a prediction tool, due to inadequate applications and overly simplified test conditions. We provide a critical review of in vitro and in vivo techniques currently used for evaluation of nanoparticles and introduce emerging techniques and models that may be used complementarily.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Techniques used for prediction of physical and chemical stability of various NPs. Techniques are listed in the order of required time and resources (top to bottom: least to most).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Commonly used 3D tumor models to determine NP efficacy.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Animal models of tumor used in the evaluation of in vivo efficacy of NPs. TSG: Tumor suppressor genes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Dynamic Light Scattering. An introduction in 30 minutes. Malvern Instruments; [Accessed on 11/1/12]. http://www.malvern.com/malvern/kbase.nsf/allbyno/KB000734?opendocument.
    1. Dynamic Light Scattering. Common Terms Defined (MRK 1764-01) [Accessed on 11/1/12];Malvern Instruments. http://www.malvern.com/common/downloads/campaign/MRK1764-01.pdf.
    1. Lu XY, Wu DC, Li ZJ, Chen GQ. Polymer nanoparticles. Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2011;104:299–323. - PubMed
    1. Hoo CM, Starostin N, West P, Mecartney ML. A comparison of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) methods to characterize nanoparticle size distributions. J Nanopart Res. 2008;10:89–96.
    1. Mahl D, Diendorf J, Meyer-Zaika W, Epple M. Possibilities and limitations of different analytical methods for the size determination of a bimodal dispersion of metallic nanoparticles. Colloid Surface A. 2011;377:386–392.

Publication types