Development of Graphene‐Based Materials in Bone Tissue Engineaering

Abstract

Currently, general treatments of criticalsized bone defects include autografts, allografts, and the use of bone regeneration biomaterials. [1] Autograft is the gold standard approach due to its satisfying osteogenicity. But it also faces drawbacks such as an invasive surgical operation for bone harvest and scarcity of available donor sites. [2] Allograft is accompanied by the risk of disease transmission and immunological rejection. [2] Therefore, significant efforts have been devoted to finding alternative approaches for bone regeneration. Bone tissue engineering (BTE) provides a promising alternative strategy to realize higher-level restoration of bone defects. BTE exploits the elaborate combination of scaffolds, seeding cells, and biological factors to form a functional substitute or assist in situ regeneration. In most BTE research, stem cells are implanted into defective bone sites with the support of a biomaterial-based scaffold and are supposed to proliferate and differentiate into osteoblasts to promote bone regeneration. However, the performances of many current BTE systems could not meet the therapeutic expectation due to problems such as insufficient osteogenic differentiation and limited vascularization. [3][4][5] Many studies tried to improve the performance of BTE via enhancing the properties of the biomaterial-based scaffold. [6] In addition to traditional macroor microscale forms of metals, ceramics, and polymers, their nanoscale counterparts have been extensively explored for BTE due to their unique properties. [7][8][9][10] Ever since Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov [11] discovered a simple and feasible method for graphene isolation, graphene family materials (GFMs) have attracted great interest in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. In BTE, bGBMs show promising potentials such as mechanical strength, high specific surface, and adsorption ability. [12][13][14][15][16][17] According to the composition, bGBMs could be categorized into GFMs and GFMs-containing composite materials (GCMs). GFMs refer to graphene and its derivatives, containing 0D graphene quantum dots (GQDs), 2D graphene (GR), graphene oxide (GO), and reduced graphene oxide (rGO), 3D graphite, etc. Among them, GQDs, GR, GO, and rGO could be obtained by chemical approaches using graphite as the starting material. GCMs are composite materials consisting of GFMs and other materials such Bone regeneration-related graphene-based materials (bGBMs) are increasingly attracting attention in tissue engineering due to their special physical and chemical properties. The purpose of this review is to quantitatively analyze mass academic literature in the field of bGBMs through scientometrics software CiteSpace, to demonstrate the rules and trends of bGBMs, thus to analyze and summarize the mechanisms behind the rules, and to provide clues for future research. First, the research status, hotspots, and frontiers of bGBMs are analyzed in an intuitively and vividly visualized way. Next, the extracted important subjects such as fabricatio...

Carbon nanomaterials‐based electrically conductive scaffolds for tissue engineering applications

“…It has been demonstrated that these nanomaterials can permeate cell membranes, resulting in significant damage to the cell membranes. 104 Moreover, their subsequent translocation into cells and cell nuclei has the potential to trigger inflammation and, in more severe cases, genotoxicity. 105 In comparison, when these carbon nanomaterials are used in composite materials, their free movement is restricted, obstructing the free interaction with the cells, thereby resulting in minimal or no cytotoxic effects.…”

“…Several studies have reported that carbon nanomaterials often induce cytotoxicity while freely interacting with cells in powder form, depending on the size, shape, concentration, surface functionalization, and rate of aggregation of these nanomaterials. It has been demonstrated that these nanomaterials can permeate cell membranes, resulting in significant damage to the cell membranes 104 . Moreover, their subsequent translocation into cells and cell nuclei has the potential to trigger inflammation and, in more severe cases, genotoxicity 105 .…”