Graphene oxide nanoflakes prevent reperfusion injury of Langendorff isolated rat heart providing antioxidative activity in situ

Abstract

Carbon materials possess powerful antioxidant activity that might be promising for the development of new generation treatment of cardiovascular diseases, ischemic conditions, and reperfusion injury. The present study aimed to characterize the structure of nanosized graphene oxide (GrO) sample and evaluate the antioxidant efficacy of GrO in situ models of oxidative stress widely used in pre-clinical studies. The structure and surface chemistry of the initial samples were analyzed via LDS, RAMAN, LDI, TPD-MS, and FTIR methods. The GrO showed a strong ability to scavenge DPPH, hydroxyl, and superoxide anion free radicals and have a total antioxidant capacity. The DFT quantum-chemical calculation demonstrated the radical scavenging effect of GrO proceeding due to the physical adsorption of the free radical on the surface. For evaluation of the antioxidant effect of GrO in situ, we used the model of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) of Langendorff isolated rat heart. We revealed that intravenous pretreatment of Wistar male rats with GrO significantly increased resistance of myocardium to I/R, improved restoration of heart function, prevented non-effective oxygen utilization, and I/R-induced reactive oxygen species production in cardiac tissue. Thus, our data demonstrate the perspective of further use of GrO for the development of antiischemic therapy.

Keywords:

• Graphene oxide
• ischemia/reperfusion
• heart
• free radical scavenging
• DFT calculation

Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to “Grafren AB” for the GrO sample with the highest purity synthesis; to G. I. Dovbeshko for interpretation of the RAMAN spectra; to T. Yu. Gromovy for LDI analyses and to T. V. Kulyk and B. B. Palyanycya for TPD-MS analysis.

Ethical approval

Experiments on animals were conducted under the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (22 September 2010) and to the Law 3447-IV (2006) “On the Protection of Animals from Brutal Treatment,” adopted by the Parliament of Ukraine and by the Biomedical Ethics Committee of Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology (protocol № 2/21, 16.06.21).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. Raw data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine under grant [number 2020.01/0107].