Engineering carbon nanomaterials for stem cell-based tissue engineering

Abstract

Recent advances in creating carbon nanomaterials and their derivatives have led to several opportunities in biomedical research and clinical applications. The current and most promising biomedical applications of carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene includes but are not limited to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Owing to their unique intrinsic physical and chemical properties, they have been engineered by different methods to develop suitable two-dimensional and three-dimensional scaffolds. Such biocompatible nanostructured scaffolds were found to sustain growth, proliferation, and adhesion of different stem cells. While some of these scaffolds were found to accelerate the osteogenic, neurogenic, and adipogenic differentiation of various stem cells in the presence of specific medium, some scaffolds have been reported to support spontaneous differentiation of the stem cells into specific adult tissues even in normal medium. Several underlying mechanisms such as nanotopography, preconcentration of growth factors, electrostatic and chemical interactions have been proposed for such behavior of stem cells growing on different carbon nanomaterial-based scaffolds. Above results indicate them as excellent nanoplatforms for tissue engineering and stem cell-based regenerative medicine. However, most of these literature reports consist only of in vitro studies with specific stem cells. Therefore, sufficient in vivo studies together with relevant toxicity and biocompatibility data are necessary for their future application as an implantable tissue engineering material.