ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Renal excretion is one of the major routes of nanomaterial elimination from the body. Many previous studies have found that graphene oxide nanosheets are excreted in bulk through the kidneys. However, how the lateral size affects GO disposition in the kidneys including glomerular filtration, active tubular secretion and tubular reabsorption is still unknown. RESULTS: The thin, two-dimensional graphene oxide nanosheets (GOs) was observed to excrete in urine through the kidneys, but the lateral dimension of GOs affects their renal clearance pathway and renal injury. The s-GOs could be renal excreted via the glomerular filtration, while the l-GOs were predominately excreted via proximal tubular secretion at a much faster renal clearance rate than the s-GOs. For the tubular secretion of l-GOs, the mRNA level of basolateral organic anion transporters Oat1 and Oat2 in the kidney presented dose dependent increase, while no obvious alterations of the efflux transporters such as Mdr1 and Mrp4 mRNA expression levels were observed, suggesting the accumulation of l-GOs. During the GO renal elimination, mostly the high dose of 15 mg/kg s-GO and l-GO treatment showed obvious kidney injuries but at different renal compartment, i.e., the s-GOs induced obvious glomerular changes in podocytes, while the l-GOs induced more obvious tubular injuries including necrosis of renal tubular epithelial cells, loss of brush border, cast formation and tubular dilatation. The specifically tubular injury biomarkers KIM1 and NGAL were shown slight increase with mRNA levels in l-GO administrated mice. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that the lateral size of GOs affected their interactions with different renal compartments, renal excretion pathways and potential kidney injuries.