Preparation and characterization of antibacterial dopamine-functionalized reduced graphene oxide/PLLA composite nanofibers

Biyun Li; Feng Xiong; Bo Yao; Qian Du; Jun Cao; Jiangang Qu; Wei Feng; Huihua Yuan

doi:10.1039/d0ra03224g

Preparation and characterization of antibacterial dopamine-functionalized reduced graphene oxide/PLLA composite nanofibers

RSC Adv. 2020 May 15;10(32):18614-18623. doi: 10.1039/d0ra03224g. eCollection 2020 May 14.

Authors

Biyun Li¹, Feng Xiong¹, Bo Yao¹, Qian Du¹, Jun Cao¹, Jiangang Qu^{2

3}, Wei Feng^{4

5}, Huihua Yuan¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Sciences, Nantong University Nantong Jiangsu 226019 China yuanhh@ntu.edu.cn.
² School of Textile and Clothing, Nantong University Nantong Jiangsu 226019 China.
³ Key Laboratory of Textile Science, Donghua University, Ministry of Education Shanghai 201620 Shanghai China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 200050 China fengwei@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁵ School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University Shanghai 200444 China.

Abstract

Electrospun poly(l)-lactide (PLLA) ultrafine fibers are a biodegradable and biocompatible scaffold, widely used in tissue engineering applications. Unfortunately, these scaffolds have some limitations related to the absence of bioactivity and antibacterial capacity. In this study, dopamine-functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/PLLA composite nanofibers were fabricated via electrospinning. The morphology and the physicochemical and biological properties of the composite nanofibers were investigated. The results indicate that incorporating rGO improves the hydrophilic, mechanical, and biocompatibility properties of PLLA nanofibers. Tetracycline hydrochloride (TC)-loaded rGO/PLLA composite nanofibers showed better controlled drug release profiles compared to GO/PLLA and PLLA nanofibrous scaffolds. Drug-loaded nanofibrous scaffolds showed significantly improved antibacterial activity against Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Additionally, rGO/PLLA composite nanofibers exhibited enhanced cytocompatibility. Thus, it can be concluded that rGO/PLLA composite nanofibers allow the development of multifunctional scaffolds for use in biomedical applications.