Due to their unique
physicochemical properties, graphene and its
derivatives are widely exploited for biomedical applications. It has
been shown that graphene may exert different degrees of toxicity in
in vivo or in vitro models when administered via different routes
and penetrated through physiological barriers, subsequently being
distributed within tissues or located within cells. In this study,
in vitro neurotoxicity of graphene with different surface areas (150
and 750 m2/g) was examined on dopaminergic neuron model
cells. SH-SY5Y cells were treated with graphene possessing two different
surface areas (150 and 750 m2/g) in different concentrations
between 400 and 3.125 μg/mL, and the cytotoxic and genotoxic
effects were investigated. Both sizes of graphene have shown increased
cell viability in decreasing concentrations. Cell damage increased
with higher surface area. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) results have
concluded that the viability loss of the cells is not through membrane
damage. Neither of the two graphene types showed damage through lipid
peroxidation (MDA) oxidative stress pathway. Glutathione (GSH) values
increased within the first 24 and 48 h for both types of graphene.
This increase suggests that graphene has an antioxidant effect on
the SH-SY5Y model neurons. Comet analysis shows that graphene does
not show genotoxicity on either surface area. Although there are many
studies on graphene and its derivatives on their use with different
cells in the literature, there are conflicting results in these studies,
and most of the literature is focused on graphene oxide. Among these
studies, no study examining the effect of graphene surface areas on
the cell was found. Our study contributes to the literature in terms
of examining the cytotoxic and genotoxic behavior of graphene with
different surface areas.