Zhang Liuyang, Xu Bingqian, Wang Xianqiao
College of Engineering and NanoSEC, University of Georgia , Athens, Georgia 30602, United States.
J Phys Chem B. 2016 Feb 11;120(5):957-64. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b10330. Epub 2016 Feb 3.
The health risk associated with high cholesterol levels in the human body has motivated intensive efforts to lower them by using specialized drugs. However, little research has been reported on utilizing nanomaterials to extract extra cholesterol from living tissues. Graphene possesses great potential for cholesterol extraction from cell membranes due to its distinct porous structure and outstanding surface adhesion. Here we employ dissipative dynamic simulations to explore pathways for cholesterol extraction from a cell membrane by a sheet of graphene using a coarse-grained graphene nanosheets (CGGN) model. We first demonstrate that the self-assembly process among a single layer of graphene and a group of randomly distributed cholesterol molecules in the aqueous environment, which provides a firm foundation for graphene-cholesterol interactions and the dynamic cholesterol extraction process from the cell membrane. Simulations results show that graphene is capable of removing cholesterol molecules from the bilayer membrane. The interaction between graphene and cholesterol molecules plays an important role in determining the amount of extracted cholesterol molecules from the cell membrane. Our findings open up a promising avenue to exploit the capability of graphene for biomedical applications.
人体内高胆固醇水平带来的健康风险促使人们通过使用特定药物来大力降低胆固醇水平。然而，利用纳米材料从活组织中提取额外胆固醇的研究报道较少。石墨烯因其独特的多孔结构和出色的表面附着力，在从细胞膜中提取胆固醇方面具有巨大潜力。在此，我们采用耗散动力学模拟，使用粗粒度石墨烯纳米片（CGGN）模型来探索石墨烯片从细胞膜中提取胆固醇的途径。我们首先证明了在水环境中单层石墨烯与一组随机分布的胆固醇分子之间的自组装过程，这为石墨烯 - 胆固醇相互作用以及从细胞膜中动态提取胆固醇的过程奠定了坚实基础。模拟结果表明，石墨烯能够从双层膜中去除胆固醇分子。石墨烯与胆固醇分子之间的相互作用在决定从细胞膜中提取的胆固醇分子数量方面起着重要作用。我们的研究结果为利用石墨烯在生物医学应用方面的能力开辟了一条有前景的途径。
