Nanoscale hybrid systems based on carbon nanotubes for biological sensing and control

Abstract

This paper provides a concise review on the recent development of nanoscale hybrid systems based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for biological sensing and control. CNT-based hybrid systems have been intensively studied for versatile applications of biological interfaces such as sensing, cell therapy and tissue regeneration. Recent advances in nanobiotechnology not only enable the fabrication of highly sensitive biosensors at nanoscale but also allow the applications in the controls of cell growth and differentiation. This review describes the fabrication methods of such CNT-based hybrid systems and their applications in biosensing and cell controls.

Bio-hybrid electronic and photonic devices

“…As both graphene and CNTs are composed exclusively of carbon, they exhibit high biocompatibility and easy functionalization and consequently are used for a wide range of devices, particularly, biosensors. 35,36…”

“…The diameter of an swCNT is typically 1-2 nm, while the diameter of an mwCNT ranges from 2 nm to over 100 nm. 35 The length of the nanotubes can reach up to ~0.5 m, although typically shorter (mm to cm) length tubes are produced. CNTs are commonly synthesized on a solid support using surface-programmed assembly methods and can have either metallic or semiconductor properties with various band gaps, depending on the bonding structure.…”

“…As both graphene and CNTs are composed exclusively of carbon, they exhibit high biocompatibility and easy functionalization and consequently are used for a wide range of devices, particularly, biosensors. 35,36 TMD monolayers are atomically thin semiconductors of the type MX 2 , with M a transition-metal atom (e.g. Mo and W) and X a chalcogen atom (S, Se, or Te).…”

Unsupervised Idealization of Nano-Electronic Sensors Recordings with Concept Drifts: A Compressive Feature Learning Approach for Non-Stationary Single-Molecule Data Analysis

“…Fluorescence-based techniques (total internal reflection fluorescence microscope, confocal microscopy and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy), opposed or combined to force-based techniques (optical trap, magnetic trap and atomic force microscope) (1)(2)(3)(4), offer the possibility to study molecules one at a time and to highlight reaction pathways and reaction intermediates that ensemble methods tend to hide because of their effect of averaging (5). More recently, another approach has been emerging based on single-molecule field-effect transistors (smFETs), in which an individual molecule is immobilized on a nanoscale electrical circuit, such as a carbon nanotube (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) or silicon nanowire (13)(14)(15)(16). By recording fluctuations in the electrical conductance of such circuits, studies have reported the realtime monitoring of transitions between different conformational states, such as hybridization (17)(18)(19)(20), folding events in nucleic acids (17,21), enzymatic catalysis with a ultra-high sensitivity and specificity (22,23), and also other applications in biology and medicine, such as imaging (24,25) and drug delivery (26,27) to cancer and brain.…”

Effect of Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes and their Citric Acid Polymerization on Mesenchymal Stem Cells In Vitro

“…The polymerization of MWNTs with PCA starts with the acid-functionalized MWNTs (fMWNT) and is followed by the addition of PCA, which covalently joins carboxylic functional groups of PCA and fMWNTs via a cleavable ester, obtaining polycitric acid-MWNTs (PMWNTs), an interesting material for nanomedicine applications [17,27,28,30,32]. Although in cell therapy, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) cultured on scaffolding are a real option in the field of tissue engineering [33] for generate or repair of new tissue [8,9,34,35], one of the major limitations is still the lack of anchoring between the damaged tissue and the cells that are supplied, because the MSCs applied by suspension directly in damaged areas produce little or null improvements on the surrounding damaged tissue [36] by transdifferentiation effect. Thus, the production of adequate scaffolds for proliferation and anchorage of MSCs is a fundamental aspect for future investigation [37] Despite that polymerized CNTs with other materials have effects on the MSC behavior, promoting adhesion [18,[38][39][40], changing stem cell's shape [7,8,41,42], and providing signals that may promote proliferation or differentiation [18], it is unknown if polymerized CNTs with PCA could help as intermediaries or structurally could act as a kind of staple between the extracellular matrix of a damaged tissue with the extracellular matrix of MSCs previously treated in vitro with PMWNT before injected.…”