Disinfector‐Assisted Low Temperature Reduced Graphene Oxide‐Protein Surgical Dressing for the Postoperative Photothermal Treatment of Melanoma

Abstract

Materials that combine the functionalities of both of proteins and graphene are of great interest for the engineering of biosensing, drug delivery, and regenerative devices. Graphene oxide (GO) offers an opportunity to design GO-protein interactions but the need for harsh reduction processes to enable GO photoexcitation remains a limitation. A disinfector-assisted low temperature method to reduce GO-protein materials and fabricate surgical dressings with tuneable photothermal efficiency and bioactive properties for the postoperative treatment of melanoma is reported. The approach harnesses the capacity of 70% ethanol to penetrate the protein shell of microorganisms to infiltrate GO-protein complexes and reduce GO at low temperature (85 °C) while maintaining the material structure and bioactivity. Both experiments and coarse-grained simulations are used to describe the reduction process and assess the material properties. In vitro and in vivo validation revealed the capacity of the dressings to prevent tumor recurrence and promote healing after tumor resection.

Short Peptide Self-Assembly in the Martini Coarse-Grain Force Field Family

“…This model correctly predicted the confining effect of the proteins on the CGGO interlayer distance and revealed why a 70% ethanol solution produced the most reduced graphene oxide upon heat treatment, being that this solution produced the conformational changes in the protein that squeezed the interlayer distance the most. This finding was confirmed by subsequent WAXS experiments …”

“… 25 Antifreeze water molecules are also available to prevent freezing in ordered surfaces such as phospholipid bilayers 20 or surfaces such as graphene. 26 Antifreeze water does not affect dipeptide self-assembly, so it has not been studied here. Martini versions that aim to speed up simulations but not change the simulation outcome are discussed in the Supporting Information , section 1 .…”

“…These polarizable waters and amino acid side chains are based on the Drude model . Antifreeze water molecules are also available to prevent freezing in ordered surfaces such as phospholipid bilayers or surfaces such as graphene . Antifreeze water does not affect dipeptide self-assembly, so it has not been studied here.…”

Integrating Computation, Experiment, and Machine Learning in the Design of Peptide‐Based Supramolecular Materials and Systems

“…The resulting non-covalent bioconjugate composites have been found to reduce the cytotoxicity of GO critical for the potential uses of GO in medical treatments where it can be used as (conducting) biological scaffolding. [81] A MARTINI-compatible coarse-grained GO model was developed to gain insights into the mode of co-assembly. This model revealed that the aggregation between ELK1 and GO was largely electrostatically driven by the interaction between negatively R, where R may be a DNA or peptide sequence (or a combination of the two).…”

Graphene Properties, Synthesis and Applications: A Review

“… 134 Ethanol-assisted reduction treatment rGO Young's moduli ≈ 1100 kPa Treatment of skin cancer Ref. 135 Freeze-drying GO aerogel foam Conductivity 4.12 × 10 –4 S/cm Solid state battery Ref. 136 Gas phase synthesized graphene Single to few-layer graphene Water contacts 153.0° ± 3.0° Superhydrophobic coating Ref.…”