Amphiphilic-like carbon dots as antitumoral drug vehicles and phototherapeutical agents
Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemAutor
Ortega Muñoz, Mariano; Vargas Navarro, Paula; Plesselova, Simona; Girón González, María Dolores; Iglesias Salto, Guillermo Ramón; Salto González, Rafael; Hernández Mateo, Fernando; Delgado Mora, Ángel Vicente; López Jaramillo, Francisco Javier; Santoyo González, FranciscoEditorial
Royal Society of Chemistry
Fecha
2021-10-05Referencia bibliográfica
Mater. Chem. Front., 2021, Advance Article. DOI: [10.1039/d1qm00855b]
Patrocinador
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades PGC2018-098770-B-I00 CTQ2017-86125-P; Junta de Andalucia B-FQM-141-UGR18 A1-FQM-341-UGR-18 C-FQM-497-UGR18Resumen
Water-insoluble carbon dots are recognized as promising materials, although their applications in
nanomedicine are rarely explored, despite their lipophilic character and foreseen compatibility with
biological membranes. In this article, we exploit the anhydride functionalization of carbon dots obtained
by thermolysis of citric acid to synthesize amphiphilic-like carbon dots (LCDs) by reaction with alkyl
amines. A differential feature of this approach is that the hydrophobicity of LCDs is a balance between
the ionization of the carboxylic groups resulting from the reaction and the hydrophobicity from the
grafted amines. The alkyl chains allow LCDs to entrap hydrophobic molecules and the ionization of the
carboxylic groups increases the hydrosolubility, permitting the transfer between organic and aqueous
phases. The biomedical interest of these features is illustrated by analyzing the application of LCDs as
carriers of the drug campothecin and their evaluation on a battery of cancer cell lines, as well as the
transformation of LCDs into a phototherapeutic agent by the formation of a complex with IR780 dye.
Results demonstrate that LCDs behave as nanocarriers in a manner that resembles other supramolecular
hosts with two differential features: (i) the length of the alkyl chains determines the size of the hosted
guest, and (ii) the hydrosolubility of the complex can be modulated by pH.