Red Emissive Carbon Dots Prepared from Polymers as an Efficient Nanocarrier for Coptisine Delivery in vivo and in vitro

Abstract

Negatively charged fluorescent carbon dots (CDs, Em=608 nm) were hydrothermally prepared from thiophene phenylpropionic acid polymers and then successfully loaded with the positively charged anticancer cargo coptisine, which suffers from poor bioavailability. The formed CD‐coptisine complexes were thoroughly characterized by particle size, morphology, drug loading efficiency, drug release, cellular uptake and cellular toxicity in vitro and antitumor activities in vivo. In this nano‐carrier system, red emissive CDs possess multiple advantages as follows: 1) high drug loading efficiency (>96 %); 2) sustained drug release; 3) enhanced drug efficacy towards cancer cells; 4) EPR effect; 5) drug release tracing with near‐infrared imaging. These properties indicated that red emissive CDs prepared from polymers could be used as a novel drug delivery system with integrated therapeutic and imaging functions in cancer therapy, which are expected to have great potential in future clinical applications.

Red emissive carbon dots: a promising next-generation material with intracellular applicability

“…The CDs-Coptisine complexes have shown efficient drug release and can be used in cancer therapy. 123…”

Comprehensive advances in the synthesis, fluorescence mechanism and multifunctional applications of red-emitting carbon nanomaterials

“…14(d) . 415 Chen et al produced near-infrared emitting carbon dots and embedded them with hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles through disulphide bonds that are reduced by intracellular glutathione and lead to the delivery of doxorubicin hydrochloride as a nanocarrier into cells. When the hollow silica nanoparticle doped disulphide linked and doxorubicin hydrochloride loaded carbon dots were injected in the tumour region, the citraconic anhydride-modified polylysine molecule present on the surface of the nanocarrier helped in the physical adsorption by the cancer cell because of the mildly acidic nature of the tumour environment.…”

Recent progress of emitting long-wavelength carbon dots and their merits for visualization tracking, target delivery and theranostics

“…The research demonstrated that the targeted drug/gene delivery system simultaneously with imaging-trackable ability is widely reported for CDs. For example, negatively charged red fluorescent CDs prepared by thiophene phenylpropionic acid polymers and loaded with positively charged coptisine exhibited obvious target imaging in cancer cells 37 . The long wavelength (LW) emission PEI-CDs synthesized by using 1, 2, and 4-triaminobenzene as the carbon source and polyethyleneimine (PEI) as the surface modifier held effective siRNA delivery with imaging-trackable ability 38 .…”