Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Carbon Dots: Promising Biomaterials for Bone-Specific Imaging and Drug Delivery

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-28-2017

Publication Title

Nanoscale

ISSN

2040-3364

Volume

9

Issue/No.

44

First Page

17533

Last Page

17543

Abstract

Bone-related diseases and dysfunctions are heavy burdens on our increasingly aged society. One important strategy to relieve this problem is through early detection and treatment of bone-related diseases. Towards this goal, there has been constant interest in developing novel bone-specific materials for imaging and drug delivery. Currently, however, materials that have high affinity and specificity towards bone are very limited. Carbon dots (C-dots) synthesized from carbon nanopowder bind to calcified bones in vivo with high affinity and specificity. In this study we show that bone binding is highly unique to a specific type of C-dot, and that this binding is non-toxic. Significantly, C-dots derived from other raw materials did not show any bone binding properties. These differences are attributed to the differences in surface chemistry of C-dot preparations, highlighting the heterogeneous nature of C-dots. Importantly, bone-binding by carbon nanopowder derived C-dots is not significantly altered by chemical functionalization of their surface. These unique properties indicate the potential applications of carbon nanopowder-derived C-dots as highly bone-specific bioimaging agents and drug carriers.

Comments

©Royal Society of Chemistry 2017

DOI

10.1039/C7NR05731H

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Peer Reviewed

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