Liver Injury Traceability: Spatiotemporally Monitoring Oxidative Stress Processes by Unit-Emitting Carbon Dots

Abstract

Exploring the etiology of liver injury is critical to fundamental science and precise treatment, which has not yet been achieved by molecule imaging techniques. Herein, we manage to conquer this challenge by spatiotemporally monitoring oxidative stress processes using the proposed unit-emitting carbon dots (UE-C-dots) as fluorescent probes. We discover and reveal that the UE-C-dots can specifically determine hypochlorous acid (HClO) molecules, one of the important reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) in liver injury, by an excited state oxidation mechanism. Other ROS/RNS do not interfere with the assay even if their concentrations are 1000 times higher than that of HClO due to the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level mismatch. Real-time tomographic imaging demonstrates that different stimuli cause distinctly different HClO bursts in both temporal and spatial dimensionalities. Therefore, the measurement and analysis of temporal information substantially extend our understanding on the relationships of hepatic oxidative stress and corresponding physiological/pathological behaviors.

General Separation of Carbon Dots by Polyamide Chromatography

“…For p-C-dots-1 and p-C-dots-2, their HPLC traces are highly symmetric and sharp peaks at 3.301 and 2.206 min are observed, respectively (as shown in Figure 2d,h Because of more adequate separation and purification, as well as ESI-MS data, the present emitting-unit structures are both solid and precise, as compared with the previous ones. 31 Adsorption Behaviors of Polyamide Stationary Phase. Polyamide, formed by caprolactam polymerization, is one of the polymers with a white powder appearance.…”

“…In this study, four kinds of C-dots, including hydrophilic, amphiphilic, and lipophilic ones, are employed for demonstrating the separation performances of polyamide chromatography. Two of them are derived from our group, 30,31 and the other two C-dots come from Yang 32 and Chen lab. 33 Herein, taking the hydrophilic C-dots (m-C-dots) from our lab 30 as an example, the separation processes of C-dots by polyamide chromatography are described in detail.…”

Review on carbon dots: Synthesis and application in biology field

“…Common fluorescing CDs have excitation wavelength dependence, that is, the fluorescence peak position increases with the increase in the excitation wavelength [77–81] . There are also some CDs whose fluorescence is not excitation‐dependent, [82–87] so different CDs may have different luminescence mechanisms. Fluorescence sources of CDs are mainly attributed to the band gap transition in the conjugated π interval, [88–91] the defect state on the surface, [92] the luminescence of fluorescent molecules, [55] the cross‐linking enhanced luminescence, [93,94] etc., and their fluorescence emission is affected by the solvent [95] .…”

Core–Shell Structured Nanozyme with PDA-Mediated Enhanced Antioxidant Efficiency to Treat Early Intervertebral Disc Degeneration

“…As above-mentioned, inflammation generally coexists with OS in the degenerated IVD, so adjusting the OS to a normal level, in turn, may mitigate the inflammatory response for combating IDD . The production and accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are recognized as the main causes of OS, which can induce physiological abnormalities by damaging relevant cells and tissues or acting as second messengers. , In the human body, the enzyme-based antioxidative system including superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) can manipulate the local ROS to protect cells and tissues from damage. ,, However, exogenous supplementation of these natural enzymes is hard to continuously scavenge ROS for recovering the redox balance in the degenerated IVD unless injecting them often. , …”