Construction of a 3D rGO–collagen hybrid scaffold for enhancement of the neural differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells

Abstract

The cell-material interface is one of the most important considerations in designing a high-performance tissue engineering scaffold because the surface of the scaffold can determine the fate of stem cells. A conductive surface is required for a scaffold to direct stem cells toward neural differentiation. However, most conductive polymers are toxic and not amenable to biological degradation, which restricts the design of neural tissue engineering scaffolds. In this study, we used a bioactive three-dimensional (3D) porcine acellular dermal matrix (PADM), which is mainly composed of type I collagen, as a basic material and successfully assembled a layer of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets on the surface of the PADM channels to obtain a porous 3D, biodegradable, conductive and biocompatible PADM-rGO hybrid neural tissue engineering scaffold. Compared with the PADM scaffold, assembling the rGO into the scaffold did not induce a significant change in the microstructure but endowed the PADM-rGO hybrid scaffold with good conductivity. A comparison of the neural differentiation of rat bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was performed by culturing the MSCs on PADM and PADM-rGO scaffolds in neuronal culture medium, followed by the determination of gene expression and immunofluorescence staining. The results of both the gene expression and protein level assessments suggest that the rGO-assembled PADM scaffold may promote the differentiation of MSCs into neuronal cells with higher protein and gene expression levels after 7 days under neural differentiation conditions. This study demonstrated that the PADM-rGO hybrid scaffold is a promising scaffold for neural tissue engineering; this scaffold can not only support the growth of MSCs at a high proliferation rate but also enhance the differentiation of MSCs into neural cells.

Graphene microfiber as a scaffold for regulation of neural stem cells differentiation

“…GO was prepared by the modified Hummers’ method as described in our previous work 3 , the GO nanosheets used for the preparation of the nanostructured rGO microfibers are approximately 1.5 nm thick and range from 1~4 μm in size (Fig. S1).…”

“…Due to the limited regenerative capabilities of the nervous system, stem-cell-based NTE has shown great potential for nerve regeneration by taking advantage of the self-renewal and differentiation capabilities of stem cells 2 , such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) 3 and NSCs 4 . A microscale fiber-shaped structure, which can act as a physical graft for axon growth between the nerve sites, is one of the most typical biological components in nerve tissue 5 .…”

Electroactive graphene oxide‐incorporated collagen assisting vascularization for cardiac tissue engineering

“…Several promising results have also been reported when applying rGO in tissue engineering applications using electrical excitable cells. For neural tissue engineering applications, Guo et al reported that conductive rGO nanosheets on the surface of the porcine acellular dermal matrix could promote MSC differentiation into neuronal cells, under neural differentiation conditions, with higher protein and gene expression levels after 7 days . The potential of rGO for MI treatment has been investigated in many studies .…”

In Vitro Evaluation of Biocompatibility of Uncoated Thermally Reduced Graphene and Carbon Nanotube-Loaded PVDF Membranes with Adult Neural Stem Cell-Derived Neurons and Glia

“…In fact, scaffolds that support neural growth can be made of porous foams and membranes alone or loaded with a variety of GBNs and CNTs (Ramanathan et al, 2008; Chao et al, 2010; Alvarez et al, 2013; Li et al, 2013; Shah et al, 2014; Song et al, 2014; Weaver and Cui, 2015; Akhavan et al, 2016; Guo et al, 2016b,c). Moreover, there is evidence indicating that graphene and GBNs can serve as substrates for neural stem cells (NSC) differentiation, neuronal and oligodendrocyte growth, and the formation of neural circuits in cell culture ( in vitro) (Li et al, 2011, 2013; Park et al, 2011; Akhavan and Ghaderi, 2013a,b, 2014; Lorenzoni et al, 2013; Solanki et al, 2013; Tang et al, 2013; Akhavan et al, 2014, 2015; Shah et al, 2014).…”