Figure 5.

Confocal microscopy shows that the single-walled carbon nanotubes have the ability to be internalized into the cells whereas the multiwalled carbon nanotubes are excluded from the interior. Also in terms of the influence of the size it has been shown that the long single-walled carbon nanotubes are localized only in the cytoplasm but the short single-walled carbon nanotubes are transported into the nucleus.⁵⁰

Adapted from Kang et al: Cell response to carbon nanotubes: Size-dependent intracellular uptake mechanism and subcellular fate. Small. 2010. Vol. 6. pp. 2362–2366. Copyright Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co KGaA. Reproduced with permission.