Carbon materials possess powerful antioxidant activity that might be promising for the development of new generation treatment of cardiovascular diseases, ischemic conditions, and reperfusion injury. The present study aimed to characterize the structure of nanosized graphene oxide (GrO) sample and evaluate the antioxidant efficacy of GrO in situ models of oxidative stress widely used in pre-clinical studies. The structure and surface chemistry of the initial samples were analyzed via LDS, RAMAN, LDI, TPD-MS, and FTIR methods. The GrO showed a strong ability to scavenge DPPH, hydroxyl, and superoxide anion free radicals and have a total antioxidant capacity. The DFT quantum-chemical calculation demonstrated the radical scavenging effect of GrO proceeding due to the physical adsorption of the free radical on the surface. For evaluation of the antioxidant effect of GrO in situ, we used the model of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) of Langendorff isolated rat heart. We revealed that intravenous pretreatment of Wistar male rats with GrO significantly increased resistance of myocardium to I/R, improved restoration of heart function, prevented non-effective oxygen utilization, and I/R-induced reactive oxygen species production in cardiac tissue. Thus, our data demonstrate the perspective of further use of GrO for the development of antiischemic therapy.
Keywords: DFT calculation; Graphene oxide; free radical scavenging; heart; ischemia/reperfusion.