Single-walled carbon nanohorn (SWNH) aggregates inhibited proliferation of human liver cell lines and promoted apoptosis, especially for hepatoma cell lines.

Single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWNHs) may be useful as carriers for anticancer drugs due to their particular structure. However, the interactions between the material itself and cancerous or normal cells have seldom been studied. To address this problem, the effects of raw SWNH material on the biological functions of human liver cell lines were studied. Our results showed that unmodified SWNHs inhibited mitotic entry, growth, and proliferation of human liver cell lines and promoted their apoptosis, especially in hepatoma cell lines. Individual spherical SWNH particles were found inside the nuclei of human hepatoma HepG2 cells and the lysosomes of normal human liver L02 cells, implying that SWNH particles could penetrate into human liver cells_and the different interacted mechanisms on human normal cell lines compared to hepatoma cell lines. Further research on the mechanisms and application in treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma with SWNHs is needed.