Effect of highly dispersed graphene and graphene oxide in 3D nanofibrous bacterial cellulose scaffold on cell responses: A comparative study

Highlights: • GO and GE are used separately to make bacterial cellulose (BC) based 3D scaffolds. • The GO/BC and GE/BC scaffolds were fabricated through in situ biosynthesis process. • The as-prepared nanofibrous scaffolds exhibit well dispersed GO and GE in BC matrix. • GO/BC scaffold is more biocompatible and bioactive than GE/BC scaffold. • The better cell behavior of GO/BC is due to its higher hydrophilicity than GE. -- Abstract: Both graphene (GE) and graphene oxide (GO) are promising materials for biomedical applications. However, direct comparisons on cell behavior between GO and GE reinforced porous nanofibrous nanocomposite scaffolds have not been reported. In this work, for the first time, GO and GE are used separately as reinforcements to construct bacterial cellulose (BC) based three-dimensional (3D) porous nanofibrous scaffolds. These nanocomposites were fabricated through an in situ biosynthesis process named membrane-liquid interface culture (MLIC) method. The as-prepared nanocomposites exhibit well dispersed GO and GE in 3D nanofibrous BC matrix. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations do not reveal significant differences between GO/BC and GE/BC, while their water contact angles and mechanical properties are different. Cell studies using mouse embryo osteoblast (MC3T3-E1) cells demonstrate that GO/BC scaffold exhibits better cell adhesion, spreading, and proliferation and higher osteogenic differentiation than its GE/BC counterpart. The results confirm that, when incorporated in 3D nanofibrous BC matrix, GO exhibits more favorable cell performance than GE likely due to its hydrophilic surface. These results suggest that GO and GE incorporation provides different biological properties to 3D nanofibrous BC scaffold, and that GO/BC scaffold is more biocompatible and bioactive than GE/BC scaffold.