Mansouri Negar, Al-Sarawi Said F, Mazumdar Jagan, Losic Dusan
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Adelaide Adelaide Australia
School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, University of Adelaide Adelaide Australia
RSC Adv. 2019 Nov 12;9(63):36838-36848. doi: 10.1039/c9ra07481c. eCollection 2019 Nov 11.
Neural tissue engineering provides enormous potential for restoring and improving the function of diseased/damaged tissues and promising opportunities in regenerative medicine, stem cell technology, and drug discovery. The conventional 2D cell cultures have many limitations to provide informative and realistic neural interactions and network formation. Hence, there is a need to develop three-dimensional (3D) bioscaffolds to facilitate culturing cells with matched microenvironment for cell growth and interconnected pores for penetration and migration of cells. Herein, we report the synthesis and characterization of 3D composite bioscaffolds based on graphene-biopolymer with porous structure and improved performance for tissue engineering. A simple, eco-friendly synthetic method is introduced and optimized for synthesis of this hybrid fibrous scaffold by combining Graphene Oxide (GO) and Sodium Alginate (Na-ALG) which are specifically selected to match the mechanical strength of the central nervous system (CNS) tissue and provide porous structure for connective tissue engineering. Properties of the developed scaffold in terms of the structure, porosity, thermal stability, mechanical properties, and electrical conductivity are presented. These properties were optimised through key synthesis conditions including GO concentrations, reduction process and crosslinking time. In contrast to other studies, the presented structure maintains its stability in aqueous media and uses a bio-friendly reducing agent which enable the structure to enhance neuron cell interactions and act as nerve conduits for neurological diseases.
神经组织工程为恢复和改善患病/受损组织的功能提供了巨大潜力，并在再生医学、干细胞技术和药物发现方面带来了广阔机遇。传统的二维细胞培养在提供信息丰富且逼真的神经相互作用和网络形成方面存在诸多局限性。因此，需要开发三维（3D）生物支架，以促进在与细胞生长相匹配的微环境中培养细胞，并具有相互连通的孔隙以便细胞穿透和迁移。在此，我们报道了基于石墨烯 - 生物聚合物的三维复合生物支架的合成与表征，该支架具有多孔结构且在组织工程方面性能得到改善。介绍并优化了一种简单、环保的合成方法，通过结合氧化石墨烯（GO）和海藻酸钠（Na - ALG）来合成这种混合纤维支架，这两种材料经过专门选择，以匹配中枢神经系统（CNS）组织的机械强度，并为结缔组织工程提供多孔结构。展示了所开发支架在结构、孔隙率、热稳定性、机械性能和导电性方面的特性。这些特性通过包括GO浓度、还原过程和交联时间等关键合成条件进行了优化。与其他研究相比，所呈现的结构在水性介质中保持其稳定性，并使用了生物友好型还原剂，这使得该结构能够增强神经元细胞相互作用，并作为神经疾病的神经导管。
