Carbon Dots: Opportunities and Challenges in Cancer Therapy (original) (raw)

Carbon Dots Hope for Cancer Diagnosis

2020

Early and easy diagnosis of cancer is important to reduce cancer-related deaths. There are various methods designed to diagnose cancer. Carbon Dots (CDs) have received worldwide attention from the starting of this century and now, they have blossomed in all branches of applied science because of their excellent, physical and chemical properties through the combination of biocompatibilities. Where carbon dots (CD) are most effective in cancer screening. Various nanomaterial is available to detect cancer. Among those nanomaterial CDs have different properties. Some properties of CDs are like low cost of Synthesis or composition, high brightness, cell permeability, high affinity, specificity to target, photostability, good intracellular solubility, high surface area, non-toxicity, good permeability. Carbon Dots (C-dots) are a new category of carbon nanomaterial with a size less than 10 nm. Carbon dots have various applications such as biosensing, screening, imaging, antibacterial, drug delivery and more. The results indicate that the carbon dots produced diffuse in size (average 1.78 nm) and are amorphous and graphitic in nature. Brief details about the carbon dots are provided in this review.

MULTI-FUNCTIONAL CARBON DOTS: A SYSTEMATIC OVERVIEW Review Article

International Journal of Applied Pharmaceutics, 2021

Carbon dots (CDs) have emerged as a potential material in the multifarious fields of biomedical applications due to their numerous advantageous properties including tunable fluorescence, water solubility, biocompatibility, low toxicity, small size and ease of modification, inexpensive scale-up production, and versatile conjugation with other targeted nanoparticles. Thus, CDs became a preferable choice in various biomedical applications such as nanocarriers for drugs, therapeutic genes, photo sensitizers, unique electronic, fluorescent, photo luminescent, chemiluminescent, and electro chemiluminescent, drug/gene delivery and optoelectronics properties are what gives them potential in sensing and antibacterial molecules. Further, their potentials have also been verified in multifunctional diagnostic platforms, cellular and bacterial bio-imaging, development of nanomedicine, etc. This present review provides a concise insight into the progress and evolution in the field of carbon dots research with respect to synthesis methods and materials available in bio-imaging, theranostic, cancer, gene therapy, diagnostics, etc. Further, our discussion is extended to explore the role of CDs in nanomedicine and nano theranostic, biotherapy which is the future of biomedicine and also serves to discuss the various properties of carbon dots which allow chemotherapy and gene therapy to be safer and more target-specific, resulting in the reduction of side effects experienced by patients and also the overall increase in patient compliance and quality of life and representative studies on their activities against bacteria, fungi, and viruses reviewed and discussed. This study will thus help biomedical researchers in percuss the potential of CDs to overcome various existing technological challenges.

Recent advance of carbon dots in bio-related applications

Journal of Physics: Materials, 2020

Carbon dots (CDs) is a kind of carbon nanoparticles with a plentiful of surface functional groups and tunable emission with different excitation wavelength. Broadly speaking, CDs include carbon nanodots, carbon quantum dots, graphene quantum dots, carbonized polymer dots. Due to the unique nature, they are explored for various applications in the bio-related fields such as bioimaging, sensor for ion and (bio)molecules, catalyst, LED and other fields. They are viewed as great alternative tracers to the current fluorescent biomarkers in personalized nanomedicine and surgery operation monitoring. In this review, we summarized the recent progress in the development of CDs, including improvement in fluorescence properties, two-photon fluorescence, and integration with other modalities as theragnostic agents. Specifically, we discussed the preparation of dual-modal imaging agents to improve the accuracy of diagnosis, the combination of imaging and targeting functionality for the effective...

Carbon dots—Emerging light emitters for bioimaging, cancer therapy and optoelectronics

Nano Today, 2014

Carbon dots represent an emerging class of fluorescent materials and provide a broad application potential in various fields of biomedicine and optoelectronics. In this review, we introduce various synthetic strategies and basic photoluminescence properties of carbon dots, and then address their advanced in vitro and in vivo bioapplications including cell imaging, photoacoustic imaging, photodynamic therapy and targeted drug delivery. We further consider the applicability of carbon dots as components of light emitting diodes, which include carbon dot based electroluminescence, optical down-conversion, and hybrid plasmonic devices. The review concludes with an outlook towards future developments of these emerging light-emitting materials.

Naturally Derived Carbon Dots as Bioimaging Agents

2021

The recent advances in nanoscience and technology have opened new avenues for carbon-based nanomaterials. Especially, Carbon dots (CDs) have gained significant attention due to their simple, economic and rapid green synthesis. These materials exhibit excellent water solubility, fluorescence emission, high fluorescence quantum yield, Ultraviolet (UV) to Infrared (IR) range absorbance and high bio-compatibility. Therefore, these materials are widely used for various biological applications including bio-imaging. With the integration and doping of surface passive agents and elements, respectively influenced the enhancement of fluorescence property of CDs. Also, the conjugation of receptor-based targeting ligands leads to targeted bioimaging. CDs in combination with other imaging contrast agents lead to the development of novel contrast agents for bimodal imaging and multimodal imaging techniques. The combination of diagnostic CDs with therapeutic agents resulted in the formation of the...

CARBON DOTS AS TARGETED DELIVERY FOR ANTICANCER THERAPY: A REVIEW

International Journal of Biology, Pharmacy and Applied Sciences, 2022

Carbon dots are the new class of small nanoparticles with a particle size of less than 10nm used for the treatment of various cancers like breast cancer, liver cancer, skin cancer, prostate cancer etc. In recent years, CD S are used for the attachment of several drugs and/or ligands due to its ability to act on the targeting site. Low dimensional (<10nm) quantum dots have received great attention for potential use in biomedical applications (diagnosis and therapy) for which large nanoparticles (>10nm) are not suitable. We explored the biological activity of these CD S in different applications namely bioimaging, biosensors, optronics, apoptosis of cancer cells. The CD S are synthesized by using different techniques and investigated by spectral methods. The cytotoxic effect of CD S on cancer cells compared with a standard drug, showing significant results. These CD S exhibits strong fluorescence with maximum around 670nm. To further understand the role of CDs towards cytotoxicity, confocal or fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry analysis were carried out. These CD S shows increased cancer therapy efficiency through the localization of much higher concentration of drugs in the nuclei of tumour cells and induce a high rate of apoptosis.

Advances in fluorescent carbon dots for biomedical applications

Advances in Physics: X

Carbon Dots are an emerging class of carbon-based nanoparticles, which since their discovery have attracted tremendous attention because of their exceptional fluorescent, chemical and mechanical properties as well as high photostability and biocompatibility. This unique combination of outstanding characteristics, together with the ease with which they can be synthesized, qualify carbon dots as highly promising materials for applications in electronics and biology, in particular, for biosensing, bioimaging, biotherapy and drug delivery. In this review, we present some of the most recent applications of carbon dots in biology and medicine, concentrating on their fluorescence properties, biocompatibility and efficiency; we also discuss how improvements could prompt their use in human studies. We illustrate how carbon dots, prepared through several facile and costeffective methods by either the bottom-up or the top-down route, can be used for imaging cells and bacteria and as sensing probes of metal cations. Moreover, we explain how their astonishing versatility has given rise to new biotherapy methods especially in the field of cancer theranostics.

Carbon Dots as Nontoxic and High-Performance Fluorescence Imaging Agents

Fluorescent carbon dots (small carbon nanoparticles with the surface passivated by oligomeric PEG molecules) were evaluated for their cytotoxicity and in vivo toxicity and also for their optical imaging performance in reference to that of the commercially supplied CdSe/ZnS quantum dots. The results suggested that the carbon dots were biocompatible, and their performance as fluorescence imaging agents was competitive. The implication to the use of carbon dots for in vitro and in vivo applications is discussed.

A Perspective on Using Organic Molecules Composing Carbon Dots for Cancer Treatment

Nanotheranostics

Fluorescent Carbon dots (CDs) derived from biologically active sources have shown enhanced activities compared to their precursors. With their prominent potentiality, these small-sized (<10nm) nanomaterials could be easily synthesized from organic sources either by bottom-up or green approach. Their sources could influence the functional groups present on the CDs surfaces. A crude source of organic molecules has been used to develop fluorescent CDs. In addition, pure organic molecules were also valuable in developing practical CDs. Physiologically responsive interaction of CDs with various cellular receptors is possible due to the robust functionalization on their surface. In this review, we studied various literatures from the past ten years that reported the potential application of carbon dots as alternatives in cancer chemotherapy. The selective cytotoxic nature of some of the CDs towards cancer cell lines suggests the role of surface functional groups towards selective interaction, which results in over-expressed proteins characteristic of cancer cell lines. It could be inferred that cheaply sourced CDs could selectively bind to overexpressed proteins in cancer cells with the ultimate effect of cell death induced by apoptosis. In most cases, CDs-induced apoptosis directly or indirectly follows the mitochondrial pathway. Therefore, these nanosized CDs could serve as alternatives to the current kinds of cancer treatments that are expensive and have numerous side effects.

Carbon dots: Applications in bioimaging and theranostics

International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 2019

Carbon dots are a carbonaceous nanomaterial that were discovered accidentally and are now drawing significant attention as a new quantum-sized fluorescent nanoparticle. Carbon dots are biocompatible, non-toxic, photostable, and easily functionalized with good photoluminescence and water solubility. Due to these unique properties, they are used broadly in live cell imaging, catalysis, electronics, biosensing, power, targeted drug delivery, and other biomedical applications. Here, we review the recent development of carbon dots in nanomedicine from their use in drug carriers to imaging agents to multifunctional theranostic systems. Finally, we discuss the challenges and views on next-generation carbon dot-based theranostics for clinical applications.