Fiori Federico, Moukham Hind, Olia Federico, Piras Davide, Ledda Sergio, Salis Andrea, Stagi Luigi, Malfatti Luca, Innocenzi Plinio
Laboratory of Materials Science and Nanotechnology, CR-INSTM, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Viale San Pietro, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Sassari, Via Vienna 2, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Mar 24;15(7):2395. doi: 10.3390/ma15072395.
Bioimaging supported by nanoparticles requires low cost, highly emissive and photostable systems with low cytotoxicity. Carbon dots (C-dots) offer a possible solution, even if controlling their properties is not always straightforward, not to mention their potentially simple synthesis and the fact that they do not exhibit long-term photostability in general. In the present work, we synthesized two C-dots starting from citric acid and tris (hydroxymethyl)-aminomethane (tris) or arginine methyl ester dihydrochloride. Cellular uptake and bioimaging were tested in vitro using murine neuroblastoma and ovine fibroblast cells. The C-dots are highly biocompatible, and after 24 h of incubation with the cells, 100% viability was still observed. Furthermore, the C-dots synthesized using tris have an average dimension of 2 nm, a quantum yield of 37%, high photostability and a zeta potential (ζ) around -12 mV. These properties favor cellular uptake without damaging cells and allow for very effective bioimaging.
由纳米颗粒支持的生物成像需要低成本、高发射率、光稳定且细胞毒性低的系统。碳点（C点）提供了一种可能的解决方案，尽管控制它们的性质并不总是那么简单，更不用说它们潜在的简单合成方法以及它们一般不表现出长期光稳定性这一事实了。在本工作中，我们从柠檬酸和三（羟甲基）氨基甲烷（tris）或精氨酸甲酯二盐酸盐出发合成了两种C点。使用小鼠神经母细胞瘤细胞和绵羊成纤维细胞在体外测试了细胞摄取和生物成像。这些C点具有高度生物相容性，与细胞孵育24小时后，仍观察到100%的活力。此外，使用tris合成的C点平均尺寸为2纳米，量子产率为37%，具有高光稳定性，zeta电位（ζ）约为-12毫伏。这些特性有利于细胞摄取而不损害细胞，并允许非常有效的生物成像。
