Graphene toxicity and future perspectives in healthcare and biomedicine

Abstract

Graphene and graphene related materials (GRMs) are foreseen to provide advantages that bring about distinctive applications influencing the landscape of different sectors of society. The escalating exploitation of graphene related materials demands a comprehensive evaluation of the potential impact of these materials on human health. Divergent results related GRMs such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, beneficial effect on cell proliferation and differentiation rate but also apoptosis, necrosis, autophagy, oxidative stress, physical destruction, DNA damage, and inflammatory response were indicated by different studies. The current paper is grounded to the context and recent advancement in various graphene and GRMs synthesis control, reproducibility, and limitations. Furthermore, we discuss human hazard assessment of GRMs using in vitro and in vivo models and emphasize the structure–activity relationships that cause the toxicity of these materials, highlighting the key parameters that trigger the biological effect such as synthesis route, the number of graphene layers, the average size of GRMs layers, ingested amount, carbon/oxygen atomic ratio (functional groups density on the surface of GRMs), functionalization. Based on current understanding GRMs family vary considerably and it is not a valid statement that all GRMs are hazardous, nor is it true that all GRMs are harmless, hereby we provide a brief overview regarding GRMs biodegradability as a doorstep in introducing these 2D materials in the biomedical field.