Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, Soochow University, 199 Ren'ai Road, Jiangsu, Suzhou, 215123, P. R. China.
Small. 2019 Nov;15(48):e1901512. doi: 10.1002/smll.201901512. Epub 2019 May 10.
Carbon dots (CDs) have attracted increasing attention in disease therapy owing to their low toxicity and good biocompatibility. Their therapeutic effect strongly depends on the CDs structure (e.g., size or functional groups). However, the impact of CDs chirality on maltase and blood glucose level has not yet been fully emphasized and studied. Moreover, in previous reports, chiral CDs with targeted optical activity have to be synthesized from precursors of corresponding optical rotation, severely limiting chiral CDs design. Here, chiral CDs with optical rotation opposite to that of the precursor are facilely prepared through electrochemical polymerization. Interestingly, their chirality can be regulated by simply adjusting reaction time. At last, the resultant (+)-DCDs (700 µg mL ) are employed to modify maltase in an effort to regulate the hydrolytic rate of maltose, showing an excellent inhibition ratio to maltase of 54.7%, significantly higher than that of (-)-LCDs (15.5%) in the same reaction conditions. The superior performance may be attributed to the preferable combination of DCDs with maltase. This study provides an electrochemical method to facilely regulate CDs chirality, and explore new applications of chiral CDs as antihyperglycemic therapy for controlling blood glucose levels.
碳点（CDs）由于其低毒性和良好的生物相容性而在疾病治疗中受到越来越多的关注。它们的治疗效果强烈依赖于 CDs 的结构（例如，大小或官能团）。然而，CDs 手性对麦芽糖酶和血糖水平的影响尚未得到充分强调和研究。此外，在以前的报告中，具有靶向旋光性的手性 CDs 必须从相应的旋光性前体合成，严重限制了手性 CDs 的设计。在这里，通过电化学聚合可以简便地制备旋光度与前体相反的手性 CDs。有趣的是，它们的手性可以通过简单地调整反应时间来调节。最后，所得的（+）-DCDs（700 µg mL ）被用于修饰麦芽糖酶，以调节麦芽糖的水解速率，在相同的反应条件下，对麦芽糖酶的抑制率达到 54.7%，明显高于（-）-LCDs（15.5%）。优异的性能可能归因于 DCDs 与麦芽糖酶的更好结合。本研究提供了一种电化学方法来简便地调节 CDs 手性，并探索手性 CDs 作为抗高血糖治疗控制血糖水平的新应用。
