Carbon Nanofibers versus Silver Nanoparticles: Time-Dependent Cytotoxicity, Proliferation, and Gene Expression.

Beatriz Salesa,Ángel Serrano-Aroca,Marcelo Assis,Juan Andrés

doi:10.3390/biomedicines9091155

Beatriz Salesa, Ángel Serrano-Aroca + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9091155

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Abstract

Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) are one-dimensional nanomaterials with excellent physical and broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties characterized by a low risk of antimicrobial resistance. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are antimicrobial metallic nanomaterials already used in a broad range of industrial applications. In the present study these two nanomaterials were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, zeta potential, and dynamic light scattering, and their biological properties were compared in terms of cytotoxicity, proliferation, and gene expression in human keratinocyte HaCaT cells. The results showed that both AgNPs and CNFs present similar time-dependent cytotoxicity (EC50 of 608.1 µg/mL for CNFs and 581.9 µg/mL for AgNPs at 24 h) and similar proliferative HaCaT cell activity. However, both nanomaterials showed very different results in the expression of thirteen genes (superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), catalase (CAT), matrix metallopeptidase 1 (MMP1), transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFB1), glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPX1), fibronectin 1 (FN1), hyaluronan synthase 2 (HAS2), laminin subunit beta 1 (LAMB1), lumican (LUM), cadherin 1 CDH1, collagen type IV alpha (COL4A1), fibrillin (FBN), and versican (VCAN)) treated with the lowest non-cytotoxic concentrations in the HaCaT cells after 24 h. The AgNPs were capable of up-regulating only two genes (SOD1 and MMP1) while the CNFs were very effective in up-regulating eight genes (FN1, MMP1, CAT, CDH1, COL4A1, FBN, GPX1, and TGFB1) involved in the defense mechanisms against oxidative stress and maintaining and repairing tissues by regulating cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, differentiation, growth, morphogenesis, and tissue development. These results demonstrate CNF nanomaterials’ unique great potential in biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and wound healing.

Highlights

Nanotechnology is an emerging field of functional materials on the scale of nanometers at least in one dimension with a broad range of advanced applications such as medical imaging and nanomedicine [1,2,3,4]
These results show that exposure to Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) at 40 μg/mL produces gene overexpression in most of the studied genes (CAT, matrix metallopeptidase 1 (MMP1), transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFB1), glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPX1), cadherin 1 (CDH1), COL4A1, and FBN), while AgNPs were only able to induce expression changes in two genes
96 h in the humankeratinocyte keratinocyte (HaCaT) cells; (iv) this study provides the first comparison of time-dependent cytotoxicity, proliferation, and gene expression in human keratinocyte HaCaT cells between

Summary

Introduction

Nanotechnology is an emerging field of functional materials on the scale of nanometers at least in one dimension with a broad range of advanced applications such as medical imaging and nanomedicine [1,2,3,4]. Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) are one-dimensional, highly hydrophobic and non-polar filamentous hollow carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs) that are cost-effective, have good electrical, thermal and mechanical properties [5,6], and show great promise in biomedical applications [7,8]. CNFs can be used to produce conductive composites [9] for biomedical approaches that require electrical stimulation [10] and are produced at a lower cost and higher purity than other CBNs such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [11]. While carbon nanostructures in the form of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), CNFs, and carbon nanoparticles have shown size-dependent cytotoxicity in vitro in lung. Biomedicines 2021, 9, 1155 tumor cells [12], cytotoxicity tests have revealed a concentration- and time-dependent loss of lung fibroblasts, showing that CNFs are less dangerous than single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) [13]. CNFs have shown potent antibacterial properties against the clinically-relevant multidrug-resistant bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis [15] and have been used to enhance the antiviral properties of composite materials [8]

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