Abstract
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can give rise to any types of cells in our body. Hence, they have been utilized for various applications, such as drug testing and disease modeling. However, for the successful of those applications, the survival and differentiation of stem cells into specialized lineages should be well controlled. Growth factors and chemical agents are the most common signals to promote the proliferation and differentiation of stem cells. However, those approaches holds several drawbacks such as the negative side effects, degradation or denaturation, and expensive. To address such limitations, nanomaterials have been recently used as a better approach for controlling stem cells behaviors. Graphene oxide is the derivative of graphene, the first two-dimensional (2D) materials in the world. Recently, due to its extraordinary properties and great biological effects on stem cells, many scientists around the world have utilized graphene oxide to enhance the differentiation potential of stem cells. In this mini review, we highlight the key advances about the effects of graphene oxide on controlling stem cell growth and various types of stem cell differentiation. We also discuss the possible molecular mechanisms of graphene oxide in controlling stem cell growth and differentiation.
Highlights
The potential use of stem cells has attracted much attention due to their unique ability to self-renew and differentiate into multiple types of cells
We summarize the recent progress in the potential application of graphene oxide (GO) for regulating stem cell behavior
Induced pluripotent stem cells are somatic cells that were reprogrammed to the pluripotent state by using overexpression of four transcription factors (Oct4, Klf4, Sox2, and c-Myc). iPSCs have similar capacity as embryonic stem cells to differentiate into almost all cell types in three germ layers [33]
Summary
The potential use of stem cells has attracted much attention due to their unique ability to self-renew and differentiate into multiple types of cells. Graphene (Gp), a two-dimensional (2D) carbon-based nanomaterials containing a single layer of carbon atoms packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice with sp hybridization, and its derivatives, graphene oxide (GO), and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have attracted many scientific fields due to their extraordinary properties, including high surface area, remarkable electrical and thermal conductivities, strong mechanical strength, and optical transparency [9,10,11,12,13]. They have been shown to influence the self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells. We consider some molecular mechanisms that underlie the interaction between GO and stem cells, with the hope that such an understanding will enable the optimization of GO to improve the clinical outcomes
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