Triggering of apoptosis in osteosarcoma cells by graphene/single-walled carbon nanotube hybrids via the ROS-mediated mitochondrial pathway

Carbon nanomaterials are increasingly significant in the biological and medical fields, especially becoming promising candidates in treating difficult and complicated disease. Graphene/single-walled carbon nanotubes (G/SWCNT) hybrids is 3D structure which has been constructed by combining 1D single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and 2D graphene. However, the effects of the nanomaterial on biological systems are limited. In this study, we report a systematic investigation of the cytotoxicity and in vivo biodistribution of G/SWCNT hybrids on osteosarcoma cells (HOS and U2OS). The CCK-8, neutral red, and lactic dehydrogenase assays demonstrated that the cytotoxicity of G/SWCNT hybrids exhibits a dose-dependent behavior on osteosarcoma cells. In our conditions, the hybrids were less cytotoxic than graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes. The results also showed the apoptosis of osteosarcoma cells induced by G/SWCNT hybrids was through the increase of intracellular reactive oxygen species, the decrease of mitochondrial membrane potential, the alternation of apoptosis-related proteins, and then triggered the ROS-mediated mitochondrial pathway. Moreover, the in vivo biodistribution of G/SWCNT hybrids was observed by histological analysis of major organs in mice, and showed that organs were neither damaged nor inflammatory. This study demonstrated that G/SWCNT hybrids could serve as a potential platform in anticancer therapy. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 105A: 443-453, 2017.