Antioxidant status of rats administered silver nanoparticles orally

Silver nanoparticles are being used increasingly forbiomedical purposes because of their broad antimicrobialpotential. Their effects on cellular systems, however, havebeen addressed in only a few studies. We evaluated the ef-fects of these nanoparticles on the antioxidant status ofgroups of five male Wistar rats. Six groups of rats weregiven 100, 1000 or 5000 mg/kg daily through an oral can-nula for 7 or 14 days, one group received 5000 mg/kg for 21days, and a control group received distilled water. Theanimals were sacrificed 24 h after the end of treatment, andserum and tissue homogenates were prepared. Silvernanoparticles significantly (p