Functionalization of Carbon Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Over the past decade, carbon nanostructures (CNSs) have been widely used in a variety of biomedical applications. Examples are the use of CNSs for drug and protein delivery or in tools to locally dispense nucleic acids to fight tumor affections. CNSs were successfully utilized in diagnostics and in noninvasive and highly sensitive imaging devices thanks to their optical properties in the near infrared region. However, biomedical applications require a complete biocompatibility to avoid adverse reactions of the immune system and CNSs potentials for biodegradability. Water is one of the main constituents of the living matter. Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of CNSs is their poor solubility. Surface functionalization of CNSs is commonly utilized as an efficient solution to both tune the surface wettability of CNSs and impart biocompatible properties. Grafting functional groups onto the CNSs surface consists in bonding the desired chemical species on the carbon nanoparticles via wet or dry processes leading to the formation of a stable interaction. This latter may be of different nature as the van Der Waals, the electrostatic or the covalent, the π-π interaction, the hydrogen bond etc. depending on the process and on the functional molecule at play. Grafting is utilized for multiple purposes including bonding mimetic agents such as polyethylene glycol, drug/protein adsorption, attaching nanostructures to increase the CNSs opacity to selected wavelengths or provide magnetic properties. This makes the CNSs a very versatile tool for a broad selection of applications as medicinal biochips, new high-performance platforms for magnetic resonance (MR), photothermal therapy, molecular imaging, tissue engineering, and neuroscience. The scope of this work is to highlight up-to-date using of the functionalized carbon materials such as graphene, carbon fibers, carbon nanotubes, fullerene and nanodiamonds in biomedical applications.

Effective Photodynamic Therapy for Colon Cancer Cells Using Chlorin e6 Coated Hyaluronic Acid-Based Carbon Nanotubes

“…It is very well known that electron rich molecules easily form π-π interactions with electron rich molecules and the bonds are very strong. Ce6 is hydrophobic in nature and is an electron rich molecule non-covalently coated with HA-SWCNTs for PDT with the purpose to treat cancer cells [34]. This synthesised nanobiocomposite was physically characterised to confirm the attachments of particles.…”

Carbon Nanomaterials for Electro-Active Structures: A Review

“…After production, graphene can be reformed into zero-dimensional nanomaterial, rolled into one-dimensional nanotube or manipulated into 3D graphite [ 51 ]. Dispersed graphene and graphene oxide (GO) and its interaction with target cells have been explored [ 96 , 97 , 98 ]. Multiple reports have indicated that graphene is an outstanding platform for promoting the adhesion, proliferation and differentiation of different cell types, such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), neural stem cells (NSCs), embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) [ 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 ].…”

“…Furthermore, graphene cytotoxicity is also closely associated with the biocompatibility of its surface functionalization, non-functionalized counterparts were found to be more toxic [ 122 ]. However, longer term studies need to be conducted, such as preclinical studies considering different animal models [ 96 ].…”

Multifunctional 3D Hybrid Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Technologies

“…This synthesis method has been a remarkable consideration due to its simplicity and advantage of controlling parameters plus enhanced adhesion. Generally, carbon-based materials are of hydrophobic nature, which can be lessened through decoration with metal nanoparticles via dry synthesis method in an attempt to create bridging of functional groups of supportive nanometal materials (Liu and Speranza 2019). Therefore, the problems associated with wet synthesis procedure have been resolved by dry synthesis approach for preparation of carbon-based materials impregnated with metal nanoparticles.…”