Biological interactions of biocompatible and water-dispersed MoS2 nanosheets with bacteria and human cells

Abstract

Two dimensional materials beyond graphene such as MoS2 and WS2 are novel and interesting class of materials whose unique physico-chemical properties can be exploited in applications ranging from leading edge nanoelectronics to the frontiers between biomedicine and biotechnology. To unravel the potential of TMD crystals in biomedicine, control over their production through green and scalable routes in biocompatible solvents is critically important. Furthermore, considering multiple applications of eco-friendly 2D dispersions and their potential impact onto live matter, their toxicity and antimicrobial activity still remain an open issue. Herein, we focus on the current demands of 2D TMDs and produce high-quality, few-layered and defect-free MoS2 nanosheets, exfoliated and dispersed in pure water, stabilized up to three weeks. Hence, we studied the impact of this material on human cells by investigating its interactions with three cell lines: two tumoral, MCF7 (breast cancer) and U937 (leukemia), and one normal, HaCaT (epithelium). We observed novel and intriguing results, exhibiting evident cytotoxic effect induced in the tumor cell lines, absent in the normal cells in the tested conditions. The antibacterial action of MoS2 nanosheets is then investigated against a very dangerous gram negative bacterium, such as two types of Salmonellas: ATCC 14028 and wild-type Salmonella typhimurium. Additionally, concentration and layer-dependent modulation of cytotoxic effect is found both on human cells and Salmonellas.

Combating Actions of Green 2D-Materials on Gram Positive and Negative Bacteria and Enveloped Viruses

“…2D TMDs held a great promise in electronics and optoelectronics because of their captivating properties. Besides this 2D TMDs have also been used in combination with Gr in applications such as field effect transistors (Late et al, 2012), energy storage (Yun et al, 2018), nano-biosensors (Yu et al, 2017), photo catalysis (Quinn et al, 2013;Hai et al, 2016) and biomedical sciences (Kaur et al, 2018), to name only a few (Wang et al, 2015;Sun and Wu, 2018) (Huang et al, 2013;Kong et al, 2013).…”

“…Apart from the extensive use of metal nanoparticles in antimicrobial studies, Gr and 2D TMDs have been widely studied so far to develop new technologies and novel antibacterial and antiviral nanocomposites to deal with the serious issues related to bacterial and viral infections. The considerable potential of MoS 2 NSs in various biomedical applications also grasps its key role in synergistic antibacterial and antiviral action on various pathogens ( Wu et al, 2016 ; Qu et al, 2017 ; Zhang et al, 2017 , 2018 , 2019 ; Kaur et al, 2018 ; Yuwen et al, 2018 ; Cao et al, 2019 ; Roy et al, 2019 ; Tang et al, 2020 ). The mechanism explained in the reported literature reveals a significant induction of physical damage and oxidative stress to the bacterial membrane which results in continuous disruption of bacterial cells and finally in cell death.…”

Spectroscopic Properties of Two 5′-(4-Dimethylamino)Azobenzene Conjugated G-Quadruplex Forming Oligonucleotides

“…Their involvement in important biological functions, such as telomere maintenance [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], DNA-protein recognition [ 4 , 5 ] and protein inhibition [ 6 , 7 ] has been supposed. Moreover, the stability of Qs in a large variety of experimental conditions has encouraged their exploitation in biotechnology, affording a reliable scaffold for biosensors and nanomechanical devices [ 8 , 9 , 10 ] where they can also form hybrid structures with novel two-dimensional materials [ 11 , 12 ].…”

Two-Dimensional Nanosheet-Based Photonic Nanomedicine for Combined Gene and Photothermal Therapy

“…The toxicity of 2D nanosheets largely varies based on numerous factors, including composition, size, shape, surface modification, and chemicals used in the synthesis process (Gurunathan and Kim, 2016). Through the optimization of these factors in designing nanosheets, biocompatible nanosheets are possible to be synthesized, which have been reported in numerous cases (Wang et al, 2015;Qu et al, 2017;Kaur et al, 2018). Considering the fact that multifunctional therapeutic modalities has been proposed as a way to tackle the problem of drug resistance in cancer, and both gene therapy and photothermal therapy have gained great attention in the past decade, 2D nanosheetmediated combined gene and photothermal therapies may propose a possible alternative therapeutic modality in the future.…”