Microwave-assisted and One-Step Synthesis of PEG Passivated Fluorescent Carbon Dots from Gelatin as an Efficient Nanocarrier for Methotrexate Delivery
Document Type
Article
Subject Area(s)
Carbon (chemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology); Drug Carriers (chemical synthesis, chemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology); Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor; Gelatin (chemistry); Humans; MCF-7 Cells; Methotrexate (chemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology); Microwaves; Polyethylene Glycols (chemistry); Quantum Dots (chemistry, therapeutic use)
Abstract
A green and simple process for preparing the polyethylene glycol passivated fluorescent carbon dots (CDs-PEG) have been studied by a microwave pyrolysis method, using gelatin and PEG as starting materials. This method is very effective for development of carbon-based quantum dots from gelatin with high quantum yield (QY). The synthesized CDs-PEG were found to emit blue photoluminescence (PL) with a maximum QY of 34%. At the following research, we investigated the effect of the presence of PEG on PL intensity, and the result showed that CDs-PEG becomes stronger PL properties than pure CDs from gelatin. The synthesized CDs-PEG were characterized by FTIR, TEM, UV-vis, PL, zeta potential and XRD analyses. The anticancer performance of developed CDs-PEG was evaluated by in vitro tests such as MTT assay and fluorescence microscopy analyses. The examination of CDs-PEG as an anti-cancer drug nanocarrier for methotrexate (MTX) illustrated a better antitumor efficacy than free MTX due to its enhanced nuclear delivery in vitro, which resulting in highly effective tumour growth inhibition and improving targeted cancer therapy in clinical medicine.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Artificial cells, nanomedicine, and biotechnology, Issue 1, 2019, pages 540-547.
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
APA Citation
Arsalani, N., Nezhad-Mokhtari, P., & Jabbari, E. (2019). Microwave-assisted and one-step synthesis of PEG passivated fluorescent carbon dots from gelatin as an efficient nanocarrier for methotrexate delivery. Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, And Biotechnology, 47(1), 540-547. https://doi.org/10.1080/21691401.2018.1562460
Rights
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.