Protective effect of C70-carboxyfullerene against oxidative-induced stress on postmitotic muscle cells

Satellite muscle cells play an important role in regeneration of skeletal muscle. However, they are particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress. Herein, we address our efforts on the cytoprotective activities of carboxyfullerenes with different cage size (C60 vs C70) and adduct number on postmitotic muscle cell (C2C12 cell). The correlation of the structural effect on the cytoprotective capability of carboxyfullerenes was evaluated. We find that quadri-malonic acid C70 fullerene (QF70) exhibits higher capability on protecting cells from oxidative-induced stress among these tested carboxyfullerenes. The accumulation of intracellular superoxide dismutase (SOD) is proposed to play an important role in their diverse antioxidative ability. Moreover, the pretreatment of QF70 could also obviously enhance the viability of myotubes originated from oxidative-stressed C2C12 cells, which facilitates the future application of carboxyfullerenes in tissue engineering and nanomedicine.