Different Alignment Between Skeletal and Smooth Muscle Cells on Reduced Graphene Oxide-Patterned Arrays

Abstract

Cells respond directly to the chemical and topographical cues of the engineered substrate. To date, recent extensive studies have been witnessed on the wide development of biomimetic substrates that can regulate the cellular behaviors by establishing the specific cues of the substrate. It is well known that the topographical features with nanoscale and microscale strongly modulate the behaviors of cells, including adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. Herein, we present a simple and robust strategy to generate the patterned arrays of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) on a substrate to be used for the cellular interfaces. The rGO patterned arrays were prepared by an evaporative self-assembly process, which is a highly efficient technique for the controlled deposition of rGO sheets on a flat substrate. Such periodic patterned arrays of rGO could be utilized as a micron topographic substratum for living cell culture to observe the growth and alignment behaviors of C2C12 skeletal and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). The exquisite evaluations showed that both cells were regularly grown along the rGO patterned arrays leading to the well-defined contact guidance, but the only C2C12 myoblasts exhibited slightly higher level in the morphological alignment features to the rGO patterned arrays, compared to the VSMCs. Our findings suggest that the nanotextured thin films and patterned arrays of rGO can serve as promising biomimetic substrates for skeletal muscle cells and provide subtle effects on cellular morphology discriminating in their responses.

Graphene Oxide–Protein-Based Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering: Recent Advances and Applications

“…GO represents an effective reinforcing agent due to the strengthening effect on the soft collagen scaffold [116] and also due to the biological activity exerted through multiple functional groups, which increases the similarity of the morphology of the nanocomposite to that of natural bone and guides ions through the network to achieve mineralization. A recent study demonstrated that GO represents an important component in a scaffold designed for tissue engineering due to the ability to control cellular behavior [117].…”

Nanomaterial Additives for Fabrication of Stimuli‐Responsive Skeletal Muscle Tissue Engineering Constructs

“…Of these cell types, C2C12 cells demonstrated preferential morphological alignment along the rGO patterned arrays, suggesting that nanoscale rGO arrays may be used to control skeletal muscle cell morphology and differentiation. [ 114 ] Similarly, graphene nanoribbon (GNR) patterning has been employed to align myoblasts on low modulus (≈36.2 kPa) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with mechanical properties similar to native skeletal muscle. [ 115 ] GNR incorporation facilitated in vitro physiological monitoring by providing a direct interface between patterned cells and impedance and temperature sensors integrated into the PDMS, yielding a muscle‐on‐a‐chip for testing novel nanomaterials.…”

Reduced graphene oxide coating enhances osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells on Ti surfaces

“…In particular, graphene and its derivatives can be utilized as tissue engineering scaffold materials because they have known to enhance cellular behaviors such as adhesion, proliferation, and migration [ 26 – 28 ]. Owing to the hydrophilic and cell-adhesive nature, graphene and its derivatives are utilized as the micro-patterned scaffold to enable contact guidance of cells [ 29 – 32 ]. Furthermore, previous researches indicated that graphene derivatives induce cells to differentiate to specific lineages such as adipogenesis, chondrogenesis, myogenesis, neuritogenesis, and osteogenesis [ 33 – 40 ].…”