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Review
. 2022 Jun 2;23(11):6253.
doi: 10.3390/ijms23116253.

Advances in Biologically Applicable Graphene-Based 2D Nanomaterials

Josef Jampilek  1   2 , Katarina Kralova  3
Affiliations
Review

Advances in Biologically Applicable Graphene-Based 2D Nanomaterials

Josef Jampilek et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Climate change and increasing contamination of the environment, due to anthropogenic activities, are accompanied with a growing negative impact on human life. Nowadays, humanity is threatened by the increasing incidence of difficult-to-treat cancer and various infectious diseases caused by resistant pathogens, but, on the other hand, ensuring sufficient safe food for balanced human nutrition is threatened by a growing infestation of agriculturally important plants, by various pathogens or by the deteriorating condition of agricultural land. One way to deal with all these undesirable facts is to try to develop technologies and sophisticated materials that could help overcome these negative effects/gloomy prospects. One possibility is to try to use nanotechnology and, within this broad field, to focus also on the study of two-dimensional carbon-based nanomaterials, which have excellent prospects to be used in various economic sectors. In this brief up-to-date overview, attention is paid to recent applications of graphene-based nanomaterials, i.e., graphene, graphene quantum dots, graphene oxide, graphene oxide quantum dots, and reduced graphene oxide. These materials and their various modifications and combinations with other compounds are discussed, regarding their biomedical and agro-ecological applications, i.e., as materials investigated for their antineoplastic and anti-invasive effects, for their effects against various plant pathogens, and as carriers of bioactive agents (drugs, pesticides, fertilizers) as well as materials suitable to be used in theranostics. The negative effects of graphene-based nanomaterials on living organisms, including their mode of action, are analyzed as well.

Keywords: agrochemicals; drugs; graphene; graphene oxide; graphene oxide quantum dots; graphene quantum dots; nanocarriers; reduced graphene oxide.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Potential biomedical applications of two-dimensional graphene-based nanomaterials. Adapted from [17], copyright 2022, MDPI.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Structural overview of graphene-based materials. Adapted from [62], copyright 2021, MDPI.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Differential charge density of different molecular graphene surfaces. (a) G-DOX; (b) GO-OH-DOX; (c) GO-O-DOX; (d) GO-OH-O-DOX. The yellow and blue areas represent an increase and decrease in charge density, respectively. Adapted from [63], copyright 2022, MDPI.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Illustration of cellular uptake and drug release of DOX-loaded dual stimuli-responsive degradable GRQDs, in HER2-positive breast cancer cells. Adapted from [103], copyright 2020, MDPI.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Applications of reduced graphene oxide in therapy of cancer. Adapted from [163], copyright 2021, MDPI.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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