3.7. Lower cytotoxic effects of graphene-based scaffolds
The cytotoxicity of fabricated scaffolds was examined using analysis of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release in culture media. In this study, LDH release was taken as a marker of DPSCs membrane damage. At 24 hours of DPSCs culture, all biomaterials showed a relatively low level of released LDH (Fig. 6a). However, significant increase in the LDH levels of DPSCs were observed for uncoated SA (41.65%±7.35) and PLL-coated GOSA0.5 (34.31%±5.31) scaffolds after 24 hours of cell culture. It is interesting to note that, after 48 hours of culture, DPSCs toxicity obtained by LDH assay on graphene-based scaffolds were not significantly higher than the 2D surface (Fig. 6b). However, DPSCs cultivated onto pure SA scaffolds displayed the highest levels of cytotoxicity as compared to 2D control (no scaffold) (\(p<0.0001\)).