Neuronal differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells in response to the domain size of graphene substrates

Yoo Jung Lee, Tae Hoon Seo, Seula Lee, Wonhee Jang, Myung Jong Kim, Jung Suk Sung

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

Graphene is a noncytotoxic monolayer platform with unique physical, chemical, and biological properties. It has been demonstrated that graphene substrate may provide a promising biocompatible scaffold for stem cell therapy. Because chemical vapor deposited graphene has a two dimensional polycrystalline structure, it is important to control the individual domain size to obtain desirable properties for nano-material. However, the biological effects mediated by differences in domain size of graphene have not yet been reported. On the basis of the control of graphene domain achieved by one-step growth (1step-G, small domain) and two-step growth (2step-G, large domain) process, we found that the neuronal differentiation of bone marrow-derived human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) highly depended on the graphene domain size. The defects at the domain boundaries in 1step-G graphene was higher (×8.5) and had a relatively low (13% lower) contact angle of water droplet than 2step-G graphene, leading to enhanced cell-substrate adhesion and upregulated neuronal differentiation of hMSCs. We confirmed that the strong interactions between cells and defects at the domain boundaries in 1step-G graphene can be obtained due to their relatively high surface energy, which is stronger than interactions between cells and graphene surfaces. Our results may provide valuable information on the development of graphene-based scaffold by understanding which properties of graphene domain influence cell adhesion efficacy and stem cell differentiation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)43-51
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Biomedical Materials Research - Part A
Volume106
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2018

Keywords

  • cell adhesion
  • domain size
  • graphene
  • mesenchymal stem cells

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