Silk sericin induced fabrication of reduced graphene oxide and its in-vitro cytotoxicity, photothermal evaluation

Nowadays, photothermal agents have attained considerable attention in nanomedicine for the treatment of cancer after chemotherapy, surgery, biological therapy and radiotherapy. In this work, we showed a sericinbased, simple approach for synthesis of sericin functionalized reduced graphene oxide (SRGO) with low cytotoxicity and photo thermal efficiency. During the synthesis, the GO is deoxygenated in situ and functionalized by sericin, a low-cost, silk protein and concurrently forms SRGO. The subsequent SRGO disperse well in water with higher biocompatibility because of the decoration of sericin on graphene sheets. The prepared SRGO exhibited a good photothermal capacity with near-infrared laser irradiation (808 nm) for efficient killing of HeLa cells. Further, the synthesized SRGO could act as a promising material for photo thermal therapy applications in future.