Elucidating the antiviral mechanism of graphene oxide

石墨烯及石墨烯相关材料由于其独特而突出的性能，近年来引起了人们的极大关注。其中，氧化石墨烯（GO）因其良好的生物相容性、水分散性以及存在各种可与其他分子进一步官能化的官能团，在药物输送、组织工程和生物成像等生物医学应用中具有巨大潜力。另一方面，发现GO在高温下对EV 71和H9 N2病毒的捕获和破坏以及病毒RNA的释放是有效的，这证明了GO的抗病毒活性。最近，我们已经开发了一种新的方法来合成高质量的单层GO在一个范围内的大小，我们的初步结果表明，GO是没有毒性的人类细胞，但有大小依赖性抑制SARS-CoV-2假型病毒。在这项研究中，我们将详细研究GO的横向大小如何影响其抗病毒活性和GO的抗病毒机制，使用具有全球健康意义的天然病毒（例如寨卡病毒，呼吸道合胞体病毒，流感病毒）和我们最近开发的用于高风险病毒的假型病毒系统（例如SARS-CoV-2），风险水平降低，并获得H&S批准。将合成GO样品，并使用各种病毒和细胞活力测定研究GO和病毒之间的相互作用，并使用一系列理化表征技术进行表征。综上所述，该项目旨在了解GO对病毒的特性（功效和毒性），即GO是否依赖于GO大小，以及GO抗病毒活性的分子机制。这个多学科的项目将提供一个很好的机会，让一个自我激励的学生学习和发展生物化学，细胞生物学，病毒学和材料表征的许多基本实验技能和知识。这项研究的结果可能为检测和诊断病毒感染、预防和/或治疗具有全球健康重要性的病毒（包括COVID-19病毒）提供重要见解。

Graphene and graphene-related materials have attracted huge attention in recent years due to their unique and outstanding properties. Among these, graphene oxide (GO) has great potential in biomedical applications, such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and bioimaging due to its good biocompatibility, water dispersibility, and the presence of various functional groups for further functionalisation with other molecules. On the other hand, GO was found efficient for capture and destruction of EV71 and H9N2 viruses and releasing viral RNA at elevated temperature, which demonstrated the antiviral activities of GO. Recently, we have developed a new method to synthesize high quality monolayer GO at a range sizes, and our preliminary results indicate that GO is not toxic to human cells but has size-dependent inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped virus. In this study, we will investigate in detail how the lateral size of GO affect its antiviral activity and GO's antiviral mechanisms using native viruses of global health significance (e.g. Zika virus, respiratory syncytia virus, influenza virus) and a pseudotyped virus system we recently developed for high-risk viruses (e.g. SARS-CoV-2) at a reduced risk level with H&S approval. GO samples will be synthesised and interaction between GO and viruses will be studies using various virus and cell viability assays and characterised using a range of physicochemical characterisation techniques. Taken together, this project aims to understand GO's property (efficacy and toxicity) towards viruses i.e. if it is GO size-dependent, and the molecular mechanisms of GO antiviral activity. This multidisciplinary project will provide an excellent opportunity for a self-motivated student to learn and develop many essential experimental skills and knowledge in biochemistry, cell biology, virology, and materials characterisations. The results of this study may provide important insight in detecting and diagnosis of viral infection, prevention and/or therapy of viruses of global health importance including that of the COVID-19 virus.