Abstract
Actin plays critical roles in various cellular functions, including cell morphogenesis, differentiation, and movement. The assembly of actin monomers into double-helical filaments is regulated in surrounding microenvironments. Graphene is an attractive nanomaterial that has been used in various biomaterial applications, such as drug delivery cargo and scaffold for cells, due to its unique physical and chemical properties. Although several studies have shown the potential effects of graphene on actin at the cellular level, the direct influence of graphene on actin filament dynamics has not been studied. Here, we investigate the effects of graphene on actin assembly kinetics using spectroscopy and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. We demonstrate that graphene enhances the rates of actin filament growth in a concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, cell morphology and spreading are modulated in mouse embryo fibroblast NIH-3T3 cultured on a graphene surface without significantly affecting cell viability. Taken together, these results suggest that graphene may have a direct impact on actin cytoskeleton remodeling.
Highlights
Academic Editor: AnaActin is an essential cytoskeletal protein that promotes the reorganization of cellular architectures, thereby enabling cell morphogenesis, migration, and differentiation [1,2,3].Actin monomers polymerize into double-stranded helical filaments in the presence of cations and ATP hydrolysis. [4,5,6]
We first evaluated the effects of graphene flakes on steady-state actin polymerization using total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy imaging
We report the effects of graphene flakes and a graphene surface on actin filament assembly kinetics and NIH-3T3 fibroblast cell spreading as well as morphology
Summary
Academic Editor: AnaActin is an essential cytoskeletal protein that promotes the reorganization of cellular architectures, thereby enabling cell morphogenesis, migration, and differentiation [1,2,3].Actin monomers polymerize into double-stranded helical filaments in the presence of cations and ATP hydrolysis. [4,5,6]. Graphene is a single layer of sp hybridized carbon nanomaterial that has served as a promising biomaterial due to its unique structural, mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties [19,20,21,22] as well as biocompatibility [23,24,25] These properties render graphene an effective nanomaterial that can be used in drug delivery vehicles [26], biosensing [27], cancer therapy [28], and scaffolds for tissue engineering [29]. Given that graphene potentially interacts with the actin cytoskeleton, it is important to understand how graphene affects actin filament assembly dynamics for proper biomedical applications
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call