School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, UK.
Department of Materials, Faculty of Science and Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Molecules. 2024 Jun 6;29(11):2700. doi: 10.3390/molecules29112700.
Graphene oxide (GO) has attracted huge attention in biomedical sciences due to its outstanding properties and potential applications. In this study, we synthesized GO using our recently developed 1-pyrenebutyric acid-assisted method and assessed how the GO as a filler influences the mechanical properties of GO-gelatine nanocomposite dry films as well as the cytotoxicity of HEK-293 cells grown on the GO-gelatine substrates. We show that the addition of GO (0-2%) improves the mechanical properties of gelatine in a concentration-dependent manner. The presence of 2 wt% GO increased the tensile strength, elasticity, ductility, and toughness of the gelatine films by about 3.1-, 2.5-, 2-, and 8-fold, respectively. Cell viability, apoptosis, and necrosis analyses showed no cytotoxicity from GO. Furthermore, we performed circular dichroism, X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses to decipher the interactions between GO and gelatine. The results show, for the first time, that GO enhances the mechanical properties of gelatine by forming non-covalent intermolecular interactions with gelatine at its amorphous or disordered regions. We believe that our findings will provide new insight and help pave the way for potential and wide applications of GO in tissue engineering and regenerative biomedicine.
氧化石墨烯（GO）因其出色的性能和潜在的应用而在生物医学科学中引起了极大的关注。在本研究中，我们使用最近开发的 1- 葵酸辅助法合成了 GO，并评估了 GO 作为填充剂如何影响 GO-明胶纳米复合材料干膜的机械性能以及在 GO-明胶基质上生长的 HEK-293 细胞的细胞毒性。我们表明，GO（0-2%）的添加以浓度依赖的方式改善了明胶的机械性能。添加 2wt%的 GO 使明胶膜的拉伸强度、弹性、延展性和韧性分别提高了约 3.1 倍、2.5 倍、2 倍和 8 倍。细胞活力、凋亡和坏死分析表明 GO 没有细胞毒性。此外，我们进行了圆二色性、X 射线衍射、傅里叶变换红外光谱和 X 射线光电子能谱分析，以破译 GO 与明胶之间的相互作用。结果首次表明，GO 通过与明胶在无定形或无序区域形成非共价分子间相互作用来增强明胶的机械性能。我们相信，我们的发现将提供新的见解，并为 GO 在组织工程和再生生物医学中的潜在广泛应用铺平道路。
