Elucidating the antiviral mechanism of graphene oxide

石墨烯及与石墨烯相关的材料因其独特而优异的性能，近年来引起了人们的极大关注。其中，氧化石墨烯(GO)由于其良好的生物相容性、水分散性以及与其他分子进一步功能化的各种官能团的存在，在药物递送、组织工程、生物成像等生物医学领域具有巨大的应用潜力。另一方面，GO在高温下对EV71和H9N2病毒的捕获和杀灭以及病毒RNA的释放都是有效的，这证明了GO的抗病毒活性。最近，我们开发了一种新的方法来合成高质量的单层GO，我们的初步结果表明，GO对人细胞无毒，但对SARS-CoV-2假型病毒具有尺寸依赖性的抑制作用。在这项研究中，我们将使用全球健康相关的本地病毒(例如寨卡病毒、呼吸道合胞病毒、流感病毒)和我们最近为高风险病毒(例如SARS-CoV-2)开发的降低风险水平的假型病毒系统，详细研究GO的侧向尺寸如何影响其抗病毒活性和GO的抗病毒机制。GO样品将被合成，GO和病毒之间的相互作用将使用各种病毒和细胞活性分析进行研究，并使用一系列物理化学表征技术进行表征。综上所述，本项目旨在了解GO对病毒的特性(有效性和毒性)，即GO是否具有大小依赖关系，以及GO抗病毒活性的分子机制。这个多学科的项目将为自我激励的学生提供一个极好的机会来学习和发展生物化学、细胞生物学、病毒学和材料特性方面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/或治疗包括新冠肺炎在内的全球卫生重要病毒提供重要的见解。

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.