Luminescent carbon dots based on ovalbumin applied as biological markers

ABSTRACT

Among the carbon nanomaterials, carbon dots (CDs) are among the most attractive ones due to their interesting photoluminescent properties. PCs feature easy synthesis process, possibility of surface functionalization, low toxicity, high water solubility and biocompatibility. Because of this, their applications in the biomedical and bioimaging areas has been highlighted in literature. In this work, CDs were synthesized by two different methods using ovalbumin as precursor, which is a nontoxic reactant composed predominantly of short chain amino acids. The CDs were characterized by absorption (UV-Vis), emission (fluorescence), infrared (IRFT) spectroscopies, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The CDs were used as fluorescent probes for multicolor (blue and green) imaging of HEK293 cells and did not induce to cell death, which indicates that the CDs are biocompatible and nontoxic to this type of cells. Therefore, the results presented here demonstrated that CDs can be considered as a potential substitute for commercial dyes in biological images.

Keywords
carbon nanoparticles; fluorescence; biocompatibility; HEK293