Enhanced-fluorescent imaging and targeted therapy of liver cancer using highly luminescent carbon dots-conjugated foliate

Carbon dots (CDs) have shown great potential in drug delivery and biological imaging applications. In this work, a doxorubicin (DOX) delivery carrier and imaging probe for liver cancer-targeted therapy was designed based on CDs with high fluorescence quantum yield (97%), aiming to enhance the antitumor activity and imaging efficiency. Folic acid (FA), which showed high expression in hepatoma cells, was used as targeting components to modify CDs (FA-CDs), and then FA-CDs-DOX was obtained by loading DOX. Results show that CDs and FA-CDs have good biocompatibility, and the DOX release from FA-CDs-DOX is targeted and selective. Confocal microscope demonstrates that FA-CDs-DOX has excellent ability of fluorescence imaging in liver cancer cells. The imaging in vivo shows the fluorescence intensity of FA-CDs-DOX is strong enough to penetrate tumor tissue and skin, further verifying its enhanced-fluorescent imaging effects. Tumor inhibition in vivo indicates that the targeting ability of FA-CDs-DOX is significantly higher than that of free DOX, showing obvious better therapeutic effect. To sum up, the targeted and fluorescent drug delivery system based on CDs with high fluorescence quantum yield show an excellent imaging in vivo and tumor inhibition effect, which provide a novel strategy for promoting the potential clinical application of CDs in liver cancer treatment.