Carbon Dots for Multiuse Platform: Intracellular pH Sensing and Complementary Intensified T1-T2 Dual Imaging Contrast Nanoprobes.
Trisita GhoshSuvendu NandiAgnishwar GirigoswamiSwarup Krishna BhattacharyyaSuman Kumar GhoshMahitosh MandalUttam Kumar GhoraiPallab BanerjiNarayan Chandra DasPublished in: ACS biomaterials science & engineering (2024)
Measurement of pH in living cells is a great and decisive factor for providing an early and accurate diagnosis factor. Along with this, the multimodal transverse and longitudinal relaxivity enhancement potentiality over single modality within a single platform in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) field is a very challenging issue for diagnostic purposes in the biomedical field of application. Therefore, this work aims to design a versatile platform by fabricating a novel nanoprobe through holmium- and manganese-ion doping in carbon quantum dots (Ho-Mn-CQDs), which can show nearly neutral intracellular pH sensing and MRI imaging at the same time. These manufactured Ho-Mn-CQDs acted as excellent pH sensors in the near-neutral range (4.01-8.01) with the linearity between 6.01 and 8.01, which could be useful for the intracellular pH-sensing capability. An innumerable number of carboxyl and amino groups are present on the surface of the prepared nanoprobe, making it an excellent candidate for pH sensing through fluorescence intensity quenching phenomena. Cellular uptake and cell viability experiments were also executed to affirm the intracellular accepting ability of Ho-Mn-CQDs. Furthermore, with this pH-sensing quality, these Ho-Mn-CQDs are also capable of acting as T1-T2 dual modal imaging contrast agents in comparison with pristine Ho-doped and Mn-doped CQDs. The Ho-Mn-CQDs showed an increment of r1 and r2 relaxivity values simultaneously compared with only the negative contrast agent, holmium in holmium-doped CQDs, and the positive contrast agent, manganese in manganese-doped CQDs. The above-mentioned observations elucidate that its tiny size, excitation dependence of fluorescence behavior, low cytotoxicity, and dual modal contrast imaging capability make it an ideal candidate for pH monitoring in the near-neutral range and also as a dual modal MRI imaging contrast enhancement nanoprobe at the same time.
Keyphrases
- contrast enhanced
- quantum dots
- magnetic resonance imaging
- high resolution
- living cells
- magnetic resonance
- metal organic framework
- room temperature
- energy transfer
- computed tomography
- transition metal
- pi k akt
- high throughput
- fluorescent probe
- single molecule
- reactive oxygen species
- mass spectrometry
- visible light
- clinical evaluation