Surface Coating of Carbon Nanofiber by Mesoporous Silica: a Promising Strategy to Reduce its Toxicity during Embryogenesis

Abstract

Although carbon nanofibers (CNFs) have been implicated in biomedical applications, they are still considered as a potential hazard. Conversely, mesoporous silica nanoparticles are generally considered as a suitable and biocompatible material for in-vivo use. In this study, we sought to discover a novel strategy leads as a potential approach to overcome CNFs toxicity. We fabricated conventional CNFs and novel CNFs coated with a mesoporous silica layer (MCNFs). They were synthesized by preparing polyacrylonitrile fibers via electrospinning, followed by carbonization at 800 C in an inert atmosphere. A soft templating strategy was applied to coat CNFs with a mesoporous silica layer. The obtained nanofibers were then characterized by various analytical techniques. Subsequently, we used avian embryos at 3 days and its chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) at 6 days of incubation to evaluate the impact of synthesized CNFs and MCNFs on the early stage of embryogenesis and angiogenesis. We confirmed our embryogenesis data using Drosophila melanogaster. Furthermore, we analyzed the outcome of the effect of CNFs and MCNFs on normal embryonic fibroblast cells. Our data show that mesoporous coating of CNFs resulted in significantly reducing both, embryotoxicity and angiogenesis of the CAM. Additionally, we elucidate key regulator genes of embryotoxicity induced by CNFs and MCNFs; thus, RT-PCR analysis was