In vitro biological evaluation of graphene on neuronal cells

We prepared graphene(GE) with a mean size of 3087 nm. The transition of graphene oxide (GO) to GE was confirmed by UV-visible spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The experimental results of optical microscopic observation indicated that the GE ranged from 5 to 20 μg /mL did not affect the cell morphologies of the PC12 cells. The results of cell viability and membrane integrity assay supported that of optical microscopic observation and demonstrated that the GE ranged from 5 to 20 μg/ mL presented no obvious cytotoxicity. However, reactive oxygen species (ROS) assay suggested that an elevation of ROS level could be detected when the GE ranged from 20 to 100 μg/ mL. These results showed that the GE ranged from 5 to 10 μg/ mL presented an excellent in vitro biocompatibility and was one kind of potential biomaterials for neural tissue engineering.