Anti-inflammatory effects of three-dimensional graphene foams cultured with microglial cells

One of the key goals in nerve tissue engineering is to develop new materials which cause less or no neuroinflammation. Despite the rapid advances of using graphene as a neural interface material, it still remains unknown whether graphene could provoke neuroinflammation or not, and whether and how the topographical features of graphene influence the neuroinflammation induction. By immunofluorescence, Elisa technique, western blot, scanning electron microscope (SEM) methods, we investigated the pro- and/or anti-inflammatory responses of microglia in the graphene films (2D-graphene) or graphene foams (3D-graphene) culturing systems. Furthermore, the growth situations of the neural stem cells (NSCs) in the conditioned culture medium produced in the graphene substrates were evaluated. The results show that: 1) neither 2D nor 3D graphene induced distinct neuroinflammation when compared to the tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS) substrates; 2) the topographical structures of the graphene might affect the material/cell interactions, leading to disparate effects on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced neuroinflammation; 3) 3D graphene exhibited a remarkable capability of rescuing LPS-induced neuroinflammation probably through the restriction of microglia morphological transformation by the unique topographical features on the surface, showing the ability of anti-inflammation against external insults, while 2D graphene failed to. These results provide insights into the diverse biological effects of the material's topographical structures and open new opportunity for the applications of graphene in neuroscience.