Published July 13, 2020 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Graphene, other carbon nanomaterials and the immune system: toward nanoimmunity-by-design

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
  • 2. Division of Inflammation Biology, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, United States of America
  • 3. Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Sassari 7100, Italy
  • 4. Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy
  • 5. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Department of Chemistry, The Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America
  • 6. Institute for Genome Stability in Aging and Disease, Medical Faculty, Cologne Excellence Cluster for Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), and Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
  • 7. Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 8. CNRS, Immunology, Immunopathology and Therapeutic Chemistry, UPR3572, University of Strasbourg, ISIS, Strasbourg, France
  • 9. Carbon Nanobiotechnology Laboratory, CIC BiomaGUNE, 20009, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 10. Institute for Materials Science and Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials, TU Dresden, Germany
  • 11. Instituto Regional de Investigaci´on Científica Aplicada (IRICA) University of Castilla la Mancha, 1307, Ciudad Real, Spain
  • 12. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, via Piero Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy, a) Institute of Organic Synthesis and Photoreactivity (CNR-ISOF)
  • 13. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
  • 14. Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden & Department of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, Technische Universit¨at Dresden, Dresden, Germany
  • 15. Nanomedicine Lab, National Graphene Institute and Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health, University of Manchester, AV Hill Building, Manchester M13 9PT, United Kingdom
  • 16. Stem Cell Institute, University of Ankara, Ankara, Turkey
  • 17. Cancer Research Department, Sidra Research Branch, Sidra Medicine, Education City, Doha, Qatar

Description

Carbon-based materials (CBMs), such as graphene, nanodiamonds, carbon fibers, and carbon dots, have attracted a great deal scientific attention due to their potential as biomedical tools. Following exposure, particularly intravenous injection, these nanomaterials can be recognized by immune cells. Such interactions could be modulated by the different physicochemical properties of the materials (e.g. structure, size, and chemical functions), by either stimulating or suppressing the immune response. However, a harmonized cutting-edge approach for the classification of these materials based not only on their physicochemical parameters but also their immune properties has been missing. The European Commission-funded G-IMMUNOMICS and CARBO-IMmap projects aimed to fill this gap, developing a functional pipeline for the qualitative and quantitative immune characterization of graphene, graphene-related materials (GRMs), and other CBMs. The goal was to open breakthrough perspectives for the definition of the immune profiles of these materials. Here, we summarize our methodological approach, key results, and the necessary multidisciplinary expertise ranging across various fields, from material chemistry to engineering, immunology, toxicology, and systems biology. G-IMMUNOMICS, as a partnering project of the Graphene Flagship, the largest scientific research initiative on graphene worldwide, also complemented the studies performed in the Flagship on health and environmental impact of GRMs. Finally, we present the nanoimmunity-by-design concept, developed within the projects, which can be readily applied to other 2D materials. Overall, the G-IMMUNOMICS and CARBO-IMmap projects have provided new insights on the immune impact of GRMs and CBMs, thus laying the foundation for their safe use and future translation in medicine.

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Additional details

Funding

European Commission
CARBO-IMmap - Immune activity Mapping of Carbon Nanomaterials 734381