Abstract
The systematic study of nanoparticle–biological interactions requires particles to be reproducibly dispersed in relevant fluids along with further development in the identification of biologically relevant structural details at the materials–biology interface. Here, we develop a biocompatible long-term colloidally stable water dispersion of few-layered graphene nanoflakes in the biological exposure medium in which it will be studied. We also report the study of the orientation and functionality of key proteins of interest in the biolayer (corona) that are believed to mediate most of the early biological interactions. The evidence accumulated shows that graphene nanoflakes are rich in effective apolipoprotein A-I presentation, and we are able to map specific functional epitopes located in the C-terminal portion that are known to mediate the binding of high-density lipoprotein to binding sites in receptors that are abundant in the liver. This could suggest a way of connecting the materials' properties to the biological outcomes.
Highlights
The systematic study of nanoparticle–biological interactions requires particles to be reproducibly dispersed in relevant fluids along with further development in the identification of biologically relevant structural details at the materials–biology interface
Top-down approaches for graphene nanoflakes production have focused on the separation of graphite planes using, e.g., ultrasonic or shear exfoliation in organic solvents or water-based surfactant solutions[34,35,36]
Some of the proteins that we found to be strongly bonded to graphene nanoflakes are reported to have good affinity for other carbon-based nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes[45,46,47,48]; the data at the present stage do not allow to conclude a general trend for carbon-based materials in a competitive environment such as full serum
Summary
The systematic study of nanoparticle–biological interactions requires particles to be reproducibly dispersed in relevant fluids along with further development in the identification of biologically relevant structural details at the materials–biology interface. The evidence accumulated shows that graphene nanoflakes are rich in effective apolipoprotein A-I presentation, and we are able to map specific functional epitopes located in the C-terminal portion that are known to mediate the binding of high-density lipoprotein to binding sites in receptors that are abundant in the liver. This could suggest a way of connecting the materials' properties to the biological outcomes. We believe that in contact with biological media, the bare nanoparticle surface induces the formation of a relatively slowly exchanging layer of molecules derived from the environment, often modeled by animal serum or plasma. These differences may be reflected in the short-term biological outcomes for graphene
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