Abstract

Myocardial tissue engineering has attracted increasing awareness for heart failure, and researchers are committed to developing an appropriate biological material to reconstruct myocardial tissues. Here, we applied a simple and high-throughput method to fabricate a three-dimensional (3D) partially reduced graphene oxide (PRGO) foam chip, whose structure, properties and biocompatibility confirmed that it is a suitable material for myocardial tissue engineering. The PRGO foam was produced based on a reduction reaction that occurred at the interface between the graphene oxide (GO) solution and Ni foam; as the Ni foam scaffold was dissolved in an HCl solution, the PRGO foam was harvested. After the PRGO foam was freeze-dried, its elasticity property was evaluated, and primary cardiomyocytes obtained from 2-day-old SD rats were cultured in the 3D foam. The results demonstrated good cell adherence, spreading, activity, organization and beating function in the PRGO foam during the long-term culturing process, which proved that the PRGO foam obtained by this method had application potential for myocardial tissue engineering.