Liao Jinfeng, Yao Yuan, Lee Cheng-Hao, Wu Yongzhi, Li Pei
State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, No. 14, Section 3, Southern Renmin Road, Chengdu 610041, China.
Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
Pharmaceutics. 2021 Nov 5;13(11):1872. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13111872.
Current research on the use of carbon dots for various biological systems mainly focuses on the single carbon dots, while particles that contain multiple carbon dots have scarcely been investigated. Here, we assessed multiple carbon dots-crosslinked polyethyleneimine nanoparticles (CDs@PEI) for their in vivo biodistribution, clearance, biocompatibility, and cellular uptake. The in vivo studies demonstrate three unique features of the CDs@PEI nanoparticles: (1) the nanoparticles possess tumor-targeting ability with steady and prolonged retention time in the tumor region. (2) The nanoparticles show hepatobiliary excretion and are clear from the intestine in feces. (3) The nanoparticles have much better biocompatibility than the polyethyleneimine passivated single carbon dots (PEI-CD). We also found that pegylated CDs@PEI nanoparticles can be effectively taken up by the cells, which the confocal laser scanning microscope can image under different excitation wavelengths (at 405, 488, and 800 nm). These prior studies provide invaluable information and new opportunities for this new type of intrinsic photoluminescence nanoparticles in carbon dot-based biomedical applications.
目前关于碳点在各种生物系统中的应用研究主要集中在单个碳点上，而对含有多个碳点的粒子的研究却很少。在此，我们评估了多碳点交联聚乙烯亚胺纳米颗粒（CDs@PEI）的体内生物分布、清除、生物相容性和细胞摄取。体内研究证明了CDs@PEI纳米颗粒的三个独特特性：（1）纳米颗粒具有肿瘤靶向能力，在肿瘤区域的保留时间稳定且延长。（2）纳米颗粒表现出肝胆排泄，并通过粪便从肠道清除。（3）纳米颗粒的生物相容性比聚乙烯亚胺钝化的单个碳点（PEI-CD）要好得多。我们还发现聚乙二醇化的CDs@PEI纳米颗粒可以被细胞有效摄取，共聚焦激光扫描显微镜可以在不同激发波长（405、488和800nm）下对其成像。这些先前的研究为这种新型的基于碳点的生物医学应用中的本征光致发光纳米颗粒提供了宝贵的信息和新的机遇。
