Synopsis
In recent years carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted much interest in the fields of biomedical materials. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of CNTs on cells by culturing them in direct contact with CNTs. First, human osteoblast-like cells, Saos-2 cells, were cultured on a CNT-coated culture dish and the cell morphology, viability, adhesion, and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity of these cells were compared to those cultured on a culture dish. Next, Saos-2 cells cultured on each dish were subcultured onto culture dish, and the cell morphology and the ALP activity were examined. The Saos-2 cells cultured on the CNTs showed a high viability that was similar to that of the cells on culture dish. Cell adhesion test showed strong adhesiveness of the cells to multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and morphological observation revealed many filopodia extending to MWCNTs. After the subculture, this morphological change disappeared. These results suggest that the Saos-2 cells a have high adhesiveness toward CNTs, especially towards MWCNTs. Moreover, the morphological change in the cells cultured on MWCNTs implies that CNTs did not induce denaturation of the cells.
Key words: carbon nanotubes, osteoblast-like cell, subculture, cell morphology, adhesion
