Impact of crystalline quality on neuronal affinity of pristine graphene

Due to its outstanding mechanical and electrical properties as well as chemical inertness, graphene has attracted a growing interest in the field of bioelectric interfacing. Herein, we investigate the suitability of pristine, i.e. without a cell adhesive coating, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown monolayer graphene to act as a platform for neuronal growth. We study the development of primary hippocampal neurons grown on bare graphene (transferred on glass coverslip) for up to 5 days and show that pristine graphene significantly improves the neurons adhesion and outgrowth at the early stage of culture (1–2 days in vitro). At the later development stage, neurons grown on coating free graphene (untreated with poly-l-lysine) show remarkably well developed neuritic architecture similar to those cultured on conventional poly-l-lysine coated glass coverslips. This exceptional possibility to bypass the adhesive coating allows a direct electrical contact of graphene to the cells and reveals its great potential for chronic medical implants and tissue engineering. Moreover, regarding the controversial results obtained on the neuronal affinity of pristine graphene and its ability to support neuronal growth without the need of polymer or protein coating, we found that the crystallinity of CVD grown graphene plays an important role in neuronal attachment, outgrowth and axonal specification. In particular, we show that the decreasing crystalline quality of graphene tunes the neuronal affinity from highly adhesive to fully repellent.