Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30010.
Biomater Sci. 2018 Mar 26;6(4):813-819. doi: 10.1039/c7bm01192j.
Graphene oxide (GO), a derivative of graphene, and its related nanomaterials have attracted much attention in recent years due to the excellent biocompatibility and large surface area of GO with abundant oxygen functional groups, which further enable it to serve as a nano-bio interface. Herein, we demonstrate the induction of blue fluorescence in GO suspensions via a mild thermal annealing procedure. Additionally, this procedure preserves the oxygen functional groups on the graphene plane which enables the conjugation of cancer drugs without obvious cytotoxicity. Consequently, we demonstrate the capability of GO to simultaneously play the dual-role of a: (i) cellular imaging agent and (ii) drug delivery agent in CT26 cancer cells without the need for additional fluorescent protein labeling. Our method offers a simple, controllable strategy to tune and enhance the fluorescence property of GO, which shows potential for biomedical applications and fundamental studies.
氧化石墨烯（GO）是石墨烯的衍生物，由于其具有良好的生物相容性和较大的比表面积，表面富含大量的含氧官能团，因此可以作为纳米生物界面，近年来受到了广泛关注。在这里，我们通过温和的热退火程序证明了在 GO 悬浮液中诱导产生蓝色荧光。此外，该程序保留了石墨烯平面上的含氧官能团，使得可以在没有明显细胞毒性的情况下结合抗癌药物。因此，我们证明了 GO 能够同时在 CT26 癌细胞中发挥双重作用：（i）细胞成像剂和（ii）药物递送剂，而无需额外的荧光蛋白标记。我们的方法提供了一种简单、可控的策略来调节和增强 GO 的荧光性质，这对于生物医学应用和基础研究具有潜在的应用价值。
