Systematic Toxicity Evaluations of High-Performance Carbon "Quantum" Dots.

J Nanosci Nanotechnol

Department of Chemistry and Laboratory for Emerging Materials and Technology, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA.

Published: April 2019

AI Article Synopsis

  • Carbon dots (CDots) are a new class of carbon nanomaterials created from small carbon nanoparticles, which are chemically modified to improve their properties for research and applications.
  • The study specifically utilized small organic molecules for surface passivation, resulting in CDots that are bright, compact, and suitable for cell imaging.
  • Evaluation of these CDots showed they are generally nontoxic to various cell lines, confirming their potential as safe and effective bioimaging agents.

Article Abstract

Carbon dots (CDots) in a general structure of small carbon nanoparticles with various surface passivation schemes have emerged to represent a new class of carbon nanomaterials in now a rapidly advancing and expanding research field. Among various synthesis methods, the use of pre-processed and selected small carbon nanoparticles for deliberate chemical functionalization of the particle surface with organic molecules have produced high-performance and structurally better defined CDots. Specifically, small organic molecules 2,2'-(ethylenedioxy)bis(ethylamine) and 3-ethoxypropylamine were used for the effective surface passivation of the carbon nanoparticles via chemical functionalization to yield CDots that are brightly fluorescent and also structurally ultra-compact, amenable to various desired cell imaging applications. Thus, a systematic evaluation of these CDots on their cytotoxicity profiles is necessary, and performed in this study by using a diverse selection of cell lines. Also for fluorescence imaging, CDots were modified with their encapsulating selected organic dyes for much enhanced red/near-IR fluorescence emissions. These modified CDots with the dyes as guest were also evaluated for their cytotoxicity profiles. The results suggest that the CDots without and with the guest dyes are generally nontoxic to the selected cell lines, further supporting the notion that CDots can be used as high-performance yet nontoxic bioimaging agents.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1166/jnn.2019.15807DOI Listing

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