Vortex-Aligned Fullerene Nanowhiskers as a Scaffold for Orienting Cell Growth

Abstract

A versatile method for the rapid fabrication of aligned fullerene C60 nanowhiskers (C60NWs) at the air-water interface is presented. This method is based on the vortex motion of a subphase (water), which directs floating C60NWs to align on the water surface according to the direction of rotational flow. Aligned C60NWs could be transferred onto many different flat substrates, and, in this case, aligned C60NWs on glass substrates were employed as a scaffold for cell culture. Bone forming human osteoblast MG63 cells adhered well to the C60NWs, and their growth was found to be oriented with the axis of the aligned C60NWs. Cells grown on aligned C60NWs were more highly oriented with the axis of alignment than when grown on randomly oriented nanowhiskers. A study of cell proliferation on the C60NWs revealed their low toxicity, indicating their potential for use in biomedical applications.

Bone Tissue Engineering via Carbon‐Based Nanomaterials

“…Despite these challenges, recent studies have shown that aged fullerene films (i.e., one year old) had an improvement of physicochemical properties, which made them more suitable for cell cultivation compared to fresh fullerene . Some studies have shown that pre‐aligned/patterned fullerene structures (i.e., fullerene films, nanowhiskers) could function as promising templates for directed osteoblast cell adhesion and growth . For example, pre‐aligned fullerene C 60 nanowhiskers at the air–water interface was produced via vortex rotation, and subsequently transferred and coated onto glass substrates for bone cell cultivation ( Figure A).…”

“…B) Fluorescence microscopic images illustrating the growth of MG63 on aligned C 60 nanowhiskers (B1, B2, and B3), random C 60 nanowhiskers (B4, B5, and B6), and slide glass (B7, B8, and B9) after inoculation for 4, 24, and 48 h, respectively. Adapted with permission . Copyright 2015, American Chemical Society.…”

Materials Nanoarchitectonics as Cell Regulators

“…Krishnan et al . proposed an advanced vortex Langmuir‐Blodgett (vortex LB) method to regulate the orientation of cell growth using C 60 nanowhisker arrays with controlled aligned curvature . In the vortex LB method, one‐dimensional fullerene nanowhiskers are aligned at the air‐water interface upon vortex flow by rotation of water phase (Figure A).…”

Mechano-Nanoarchitectonics for Bio-Functions at Interfaces

“…33 Recently, this methodology was combined with a novel LB technique, so-called vortex-flow LB transfer (vortex-LB). 34 In this method, the vortex flow activated by the mechanical stirring induced angle-controlled alignments of fullerene whiskers (Fig. 11).…”