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Preparation of Amino Acid-Functionalized Carbon Quantum Dots Using Clementine Peel – Potential Application in Biomedical Analysis and as Fluorescent Probe for Fe3+ Detection

Abstract: Luminiscent carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are widely known as zero-dimensional nanomaterials which have attracted extensive attention, especially in green chemistry and biomedicine. Due to their excellent biocompatibility and low toxicity, water solubility, stability in high ionic media and great optical properties, CQDs have been widely used as functional optical materials in fluorescence sensing. In this study, preparation and modification of CQDs using clementine peel as carbon precursor and amino acids with different chemical complexity (glycine and arginine - nitrogen dopants) has been presented. It has been demonstrated that increasing nitrogen content in CQDs samples has increased the quantum yield percentage of prepared CQDs. Some differences in sample properties were observed regarding structural and chemical diversity, biological and antioxidant activity. The antiproliferative effect of CQD@Gly against pancreatic cancer cell lines (CFPAC-1) was demonstrated. Based on the DPPH assay results, the CQD@Arg demonstrated the highest antiradical activity 81.39 ± 0.39%, and EC50 was determined to be EC50 = 53.78 ± 0.97 µg/mL (R2 = 0.9357). Furthermore, due to the highest determined quantum yield, CQD@Arg sample was further used for the ion sensing and cellular imaging of cancer cells. The CQD@Arg was applied as a fluorescent nanoprobe for Fe3+ detection, with a good linear correlation in the concentration range from 7.0 µmol dm−3 to 50.0 µmol dm−3 with R2 = 0.9931 and limit of detection (LOD) of 4.57 ± 0.27 µmol dm−3. In order to investigate the applicability of prepared CQDs in cell imaging, MCF-7 cells were incubated with CQD@Arg and imaged by confocal microscopy. This study implies the potential application of the prepared CQDs in bioimaging and ion sensing, and also as a fluorescent probe with diverse biological and pharmacological activities in general.

carbon quantum dots ; sensing ; pharmaceutical analysis

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