Repeated Injection of Very Small Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Particles (VSOPs) in Murine Atherosclerosis: A Safety Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author, 

The submitted manuscript represents a great innovation towards the design of nanoparticles contrast agents for medical purposes. The introduction is well written and referenced, providing the reader substantial, and necessary information to understand the state of art for this work....well done, great job. 

Regarding the experimental design, I really can not find any lack of information. The experiments are greatly described, the informations and experimental details are also provided, and certainly will be used for others researchers in this expertise area. 

Furthermore, results and discussions are well tied, and supported in experimental achievements, leading to strong conclusions, that certainly justify the insertion and publication of this work in Nanomaterials journal. 

Thanks loads, 

Sincerely, 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments. There seems to be no reply necessary.

Reviewer 2 Report

This work is devoted to investigate the effect of multiple intravenous injections of VSOP in atherosclerotic mice. Relevant results including pathological changes in organs, atherosclerotic plaque development, and expression of hepatic iron-related proteins were evaluated, and showed high biosafety of the nanoparticles. Some minor revisions are needed.

1. Superparamagnetic iron oxide particles have been widely reported for in vivo imaging. So, what is the highlight of this work?

2. The long-term biosafety of the nanoparticles should be additionally assessed by conducting the blood biochemical analysis.

3. What is the impact of nanoparticle size on biosafety in this work?

minor editing needed. 

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf