Polylysine-modified near-infrared-emitting carbon dots assemblies: Amplification of tumor accumulation for enhanced tumor photothermal therapy

Zhenjian Li; Hongwei Cheng; Bingzhe Wang; Liming Wang; Jun Wu; Bohan Zhang; Zikang Tang; Songnan Qu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.153

Polylysine-modified near-infrared-emitting carbon dots assemblies: Amplification of tumor accumulation for enhanced tumor photothermal therapy

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Apr 23:668:132-141. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.153. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Zhenjian Li¹, Hongwei Cheng¹, Bingzhe Wang¹, Liming Wang¹, Jun Wu¹, Bohan Zhang¹, Zikang Tang¹, Songnan Qu²

Affiliations

¹ Joint Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau 999078, China.
² Joint Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau 999078, China. Electronic address: songnanqu@um.edu.mo.

PMID: 38669991
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.153

Abstract

A key challenge to enhance the therapeutic outcome of photothermal therapy (PTT) is to improve the efficiency of passive targeted accumulation of photothermal agents at tumor sites. Carbon dots (CDs) are an ideal choice for application as photothermal agents because of their advantages such as adjustable fluorescence, high photothermal conversion efficiency, and excellent biocompatibility. Here, we synthesized polylysine-modified near-infrared (NIR)-emitting CDs assemblies (plys-CDs) through post-solvothermal reaction of NIR-emitting CDs with polylysine. The encapsulated structure of plys-CDs was confirmed by determining morphological, chemical, and luminescent properties. The particle size of CDs increased to approximately 40 ± 8 nm after polylysine modification and was within the size range appropriate for achieving superior enhanced permeability and retention effect. Plys-CDs maintained a high photothermal conversion efficiency of 54.9 %, coupled with increased tumor site accumulation, leading to a high efficacy in tumor PTT. Thus, plys-CDs have a great potential for application in photothermal ablation therapy of tumors.

Keywords: Carbon dots; Near-infrared emitting; Photothermal therapy; Polylysine; Tumor penetration.