This chapter presents the most frequently used methods to study the effect of nanomaterials
and nanoparticles on biological systems. The aim of the chapter is not to give a detailed technical
description of the protocols, but to present the available techniques that have been adopted for the
analysis of potential toxic effect of nanomaterials, and engineered nanoparticles in particular. As
nanotoxicology is an extremely new branch of bio-toxicological sciences, the definition of its methods
is still in the process of development. In this chapter we describe the main challenges of this process,
where the adaptation of classical cytotoxicity and molecular methods has to take into account the
unique properties of nanomaterials.
Keywords: Nanotoxicology, Nanoparticle toxicity, In vitro cytotoxicity, Sub-lethal toxicity assay,
Nanoparticle characterization, Physico-chemical Characterization, Protein binding, Oxidative stress,
Nanoparticle cellular localization, In vitro cancerogenicity, In vitro genotoxicity
