Graphene nanoribbons are internalized by human primary immune cell subpopulations maintaining a safety profile: A high-dimensional pilot study by single-cell mass cytometry

Fuoco C, Luan X, Fusco L, Riccio F, Giuliani G, Lin H, Orecchioni M, Martin C, Cesareni G, Feng X, Mai Y, Bianco A, Delogu LG (2022)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

Applied Materials Today Elsevier

Book Volume: 29

Article Number: 101593

DOI: 10.1016/j.apmt.2022.101593

Abstract

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are emerging graphene materials showing clear promising applications in the biomedical field. The evaluation of GNR biocompatibility at the immune level is a critical aspect of their clinical translation. Here, we report the ex vivo immune profiling and tracking of GNRs at the single-cell level on eight human blood immune cell subpopulations. We selected ultra-small (GNRs-I-US) and small GNRs (GNRs-I-S), with an average length of 7.5 and 60 nm, respectively. GNRs were functionalized with 115In to trace their cell interactions by single-cell mass cytometry. Both materials are highly biocompatible and internalized by immune cells without inducing significant functional changes. GNRs-I-US interacted to a greater extent with myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs) and classical monocytes, while GNRs-I-S mainly interacted with mDCs. These results demonstrate that structurally precise GNRs are efficiently internalized by immune cells. In addition, our chemical and methodological single-cell approach can be applied to other cell types using various carbon-based nanomaterials, bringing new insights into their safety and future biomedical applications.

Involved external institutions

University of Padua / Universita degli Studi di Padova IT Italy (IT) Università degli Studi di Roma 'Tor Vergata' IT Italy (IT) Shanghai Jiao Tong University / 上海交通大学 CN China (CN) Université de Strasbourg (UDS) FR France (FR) La Jolla Institute for Immunology US United States (USA) (US) Technische Universität Dresden DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Fuoco, C., Luan, X., Fusco, L., Riccio, F., Giuliani, G., Lin, H.,... Delogu, L.G. (2022). Graphene nanoribbons are internalized by human primary immune cell subpopulations maintaining a safety profile: A high-dimensional pilot study by single-cell mass cytometry. Applied Materials Today, 29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmt.2022.101593

MLA:

Fuoco, Claudia, et al. "Graphene nanoribbons are internalized by human primary immune cell subpopulations maintaining a safety profile: A high-dimensional pilot study by single-cell mass cytometry." Applied Materials Today 29 (2022).

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