Li Guangmin, Zhang Xihao, Fei Xuening, Li Jiafeng, Liu Hongfei, Liu Wei, Yang Yang, Li Bingjing, Liu Mingrui, Yang Gaoling, Zhang Ti
School of Science, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin JinJing Road, 26, Xiqing District, Tianjin 300384, P. R. China.
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute & Hospital, Binshui Road, 45, Hexi District, Tianjin 300060, P. R. China.
ACS Nano. 2022 Aug 23;16(8):12991-13001. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.2c05517. Epub 2022 Aug 15.
Inducing apoptosis in cancer cells is considered a potential therapeutic mechanism underlying cancers. Here, chiral folic acid (FA) conjugated Cys-CdTe/CdS quantum dots (QDs) conjugated with a cancer-targeting ligand were fabricated to induce apoptosis in vivo. Ligand-induced chirality mechanism for FA-Cys-CdTe/CdS QDs was discussed, which is verified by density functional theory (DFT) simulation. Interestingly, we found that the circular dichroism (CD) signals of chiral QDs can effectively distinguish breast cancer cells from normal cells, where a sharp decrease in CD signal and absorption intensity can be seen. Notably, chiral FA-Cys-CdTe/CdS QDs showed significant apoptosis-inducing ability after the release of mitochondrial apoptotic factors. Furthermore, in vivo experiments showed that chiral FA-Cys-CdTe/CdS QDs provide an efficient cancer ablation through the apoptosis process with negligible toxicity, demonstrating their great potential utility in targeted anticancer agent for future clinic application.
诱导癌细胞凋亡被认为是癌症潜在的治疗机制。在此，制备了与癌症靶向配体共轭的手性叶酸（FA）共轭的Cys-CdTe/CdS量子点（QDs），以在体内诱导凋亡。讨论了FA-Cys-CdTe/CdS QDs的配体诱导手性机制，该机制通过密度泛函理论（DFT）模拟得到验证。有趣的是，我们发现手性量子点的圆二色性（CD）信号可以有效区分乳腺癌细胞和正常细胞，其中可以看到CD信号和吸收强度急剧下降。值得注意的是，手性FA-Cys-CdTe/CdS QDs在释放线粒体凋亡因子后显示出显著的凋亡诱导能力。此外，体内实验表明，手性FA-Cys-CdTe/CdS QDs通过凋亡过程提供了高效的癌症消融，毒性可忽略不计，证明了它们在未来临床应用的靶向抗癌药物中具有巨大的潜在应用价值。
