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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have appeared in recent years as innovative components for the development of the next-generation scaffolds to regenerate damaged cardiac tissue. The unique robustness, me-chanical and electronic properties of CNTs, along with their ease to undergo chemical modification, make them promising candidates for the design of engineered cardiac constructs with ad hoc properties. The integration of CNTs with polymeric scaffolds is a promising strategy for cardiac regeneration since, as reviewed in these pages, their conductivity has a boosting effect on cardiomyocytes behavior, including their synchronous contractility when grown on top of the nanomaterial. More recently, the conductive properties of pure CNTs are attracting interest to design innovative systems based on bare CNTs without using other fillers. Additionally, the elongated CNT morphology is a strategic asset for the mimicry of the anisotropic myocardium structure, and research has made great progress over the production of micropatterned scaffolds with nanoscale definition that aim to recapitulate the cardiac tissue. Overall, engineered CNT constructs are revealing their great potential to develop new platforms able to interface, repair, or boost the performance of cardiac tissue. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The behaviour of double stranded DNA molecules (dsDNA) attached to single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. We observe that disruption of short dsDNA helices is accelerated by the presence of SWCNT due to the establishment of π-stacking interactions between the nucleobases and the sidewall of the nanotubes. These results are in good agreement with experimental evidences and confirm the mechanism of assembly between a single stranded DNA molecule and a SWCNT. Longer DNA molecules maintain the structure of a double helix although with the hydrogen-bonding network slightly altered on the relatively short time scale.