Carbon based nanomaterials for tissue engineering of bone: Building new bone on small black scaffolds: A review

Graphical abstract

Highlights

• •

  Bone tissue engineering allows stem cells to form mechanically adequate new bone.

• •

  Nanomaterial scaffolds allow cell adhesion, growth, and differentiation.

• •

  Carbon nanomaterials have good properties as scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.

• •

  Includes graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, carbon dots, and nanodiamond.

• •

  Biocompatibility, low toxicity, and a nano-patterned surface form ideal scaffold.

Abstract

Tissue engineering is a rapidly-growing approach to replace and repair damaged and defective tissues in the human body. Every year, a large number of people require bone replacements for skeletal defects caused by accident or disease that cannot heal on their own. In the last decades, tissue engineering of bone has attracted much attention from biomedical scientists in academic and commercial laboratories. A vast range of biocompatible advanced materials has been used to form scaffolds upon which new bone can form. Carbon nanomaterial-based scaffolds are a key example, with the advantages of being biologically compatible, mechanically stable, and commercially available. They show remarkable ability to affect bone tissue regeneration, efficient cell proliferation and osteogenic differentiation. Basically, scaffolds are templates for growth, proliferation, regeneration, adhesion, and differentiation processes of bone stem cells that play a truly critical role in bone tissue engineering. The appropriate scaffold should supply a microenvironment for bone cells that is most similar to natural bone in the human body. A variety of carbon nanomaterials, such as graphene oxide (GO), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), fullerenes, carbon dots (CDs), nanodiamonds and their derivatives that are able to act as scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, are covered in this review. Broadly, the ability of the family of carbon nanomaterial-based scaffolds and their critical role in bone tissue engineering research are discussed. The significant stimulating effects on cell growth, low cytotoxicity, efficient nutrient delivery in the scaffold microenvironment, suitable functionalized chemical structures to facilitate cell-cell communication, and improvement in cell spreading are the main advantages of carbon nanomaterial-based scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.