Ginkgo biloba: a natural reducing agent for the synthesis of cytocompatible graphene

Abstract

Background Graphene is a novel two-dimensional planar nanocomposite material consisting of rings of carbon atoms with a hexagonal lattice structure. Graphene exhibits unique physical, chemical, mechanical, electrical, elasticity, and cytocompatible properties that lead to many potential biomedical applications. Nevertheless, the water-insoluble property of graphene restricts its application in various aspects of biomedical fields. Therefore, the objective of this work was to find a novel biological approach for an efficient method to synthesize water-soluble and cytocompatible graphene using Ginkgo biloba extract (GbE) as a reducing and stabilizing agent. In addition, we investigated the biocompatibility effects of graphene in MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells. Materials and methods Synthesized graphene oxide (GO) and GbE-reduced GO (Gb-rGO) were characterized using various sequences of techniques: ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Raman spectroscopy. Biocompatibility of GO and Gb-rGO was assessed in human breast cancer cells using a series of assays, including cell viability, apoptosis, and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Results The successful synthesis of graphene was confirmed by UV-vis spectroscopy and FTIR. DLS analysis was performed to determine the average size of GO and Gb-rGO. X-ray diffraction studies confirmed the crystalline nature of graphene. SEM was used to investigate the surface morphologies of GO and Gb-rGO. AFM was employed to investigate the morphologies of prepared graphene and the height profile of GO and Gb-rGO. The formation of defects in Gb-rGO was confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. The biocompatibility of the prepared GO and Gb-rGO was investigated using a water-soluble tetrazolium 8 assay on human breast cancer cells. GO exhibited a dose-dependent toxicity, whereas Gb-rGO-treated cells showed significant biocompatibility and increased ALP activity compared to GO. Conclusion In this work, a nontoxic natural reducing agent of GbE was used to prepare soluble graphene. The as-prepared Gb-rGO showed significant biocompatibility with human cancer cells. This simple, cost-effective, and green procedure offers an alternative route for large-scale production of rGO, and could be used for various biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, biosensing, and molecular imaging.

Quercetin-mediated synthesis of graphene oxide–silver nanoparticle nanocomposites: a suitable alternative nanotherapy for neuroblastoma

“…28 GO induced cytotoxicity in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells at higher concentrations of 80 µg/mL at 96 h in a dose-and timedependent manner, 29 and GO nanoribbons induced toxicity by generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), impairment of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), and formation of autophagosomes (APs), 30 which also depends on the size, charge, surface chemistry, and physical and chemical nature of the synthesized graphene. 27,28,31,32 On the other hand, the biocompatibility was analyzed using a variety of chemically and biologically functionalized graphene in several cell lines. For example, GO composites containing Tween-20 and chemically reduced GO showed excellent stability in water and were non-toxic to three different mammalian cell lines, including Vero cells, embryonic bovine cells, and CrandellRees feline kidney cells.…”

“…34 Lee et al 35 demonstrated that graphene-and GO-coated substrates accelerated mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation. Biologically functionalized graphene showed excellent biocompatibility in various cell lines, such as mouse embryonic fibroblast cells, 26 human breast cancer cells, 31 and human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells. 36 Although both AgNPs and graphene are widely known for their outstanding antimicrobial and anticancer activity in a variety of bacteria and cell lines, respectively, the disadvantage of AgNPs is their strong tendency to aggregate in aqueous solutions and susceptibility to aggregation into large particles owing to their high surface energy, resulting in deterioration of their unique chemical properties and loss …”

Biofabricación de nanopartículas de metales usando células vegetales o extractos de plantas

“…The number of publications is very large and most of the studies refer to the biosynthesis of metal NPs, but also found results about the biosynthesis of nanomaterials such as graphene (Gurunathan et al, 2014). It has a series de NPs de metales, aunque también se encuentran resultados acerca de la biosíntesis de nanomateriales como el grafeno (Gurunathan et al, 2014).…”

“…The number of publications is very large and most of the studies refer to the biosynthesis of metal NPs, but also found results about the biosynthesis of nanomaterials such as graphene (Gurunathan et al, 2014). It has a series de NPs de metales, aunque también se encuentran resultados acerca de la biosíntesis de nanomateriales como el grafeno (Gurunathan et al, 2014). Se dispone de una serie de revisiones de literatura que señalan muchos casos específicos, incluyendo las especies vegetales utilizadas para la biofabricación de NPs, así como los elementos transformados a NPs (Iravani, 2011;Baker et al, 2013;Rai y Yadav, 2013;Pardha-Saradhi et al, 2014b;Ahmed and Ikram, 2015;Keat et al, 2015).…”

Phytotoxicological Tests - Applications of Foils Based on Graphene (Graphene Oxide)

“…GO reduction was also caused by the pollen extract of the exotic ornamental tree Peltophorum pterocarpum. (Rahman et al, 2014) By reduction of Ginkgo biloba (Gurunathan et al, 2014) rGO which had no toxic properties was prepared, while it was biocompatible with human tumour cells.…”