EGTA-Derived Carbon Dots with Bone-Targeting Ability: Target-Oriented Synthesis and Calcium Affinity

The bone-targeting mechanism of clinic bisphosphonate-type drugs, such as alendronate, risedronate, and ibandronate, relies on chelated calcium ions on the surface of the bone mineralized matrix for the treatment of osteoporosis. EGTA with aminocarboxyl chelating ligands can specifically chelate calcium ions. Inspired by the bone-targeting mechanism of bisphosphonates, we hypothesize that EGTA-derived carbon dots (EGTA-CDs) hold bone-targeting ability. For the target-oriented synthesis of EGTA-CDs and to endow CDs with bone targeting, we designed calcium ion chelating agents as precursors, including aminocarboxyl chelating agents (EGTA and EDTA) and bisphosphonate agents (ALN and HEDP) for the target-oriented synthesis of aminocarboxyl-derived CDs (EGTA-CDs and EDTA-CDs) and bisphosphonate-derived CDs (ALN-CDs and HEDP-CDs) with high synthetic yield. The synthetic yield of EGTA-CDs reached 87.6%. Aminocarboxyl-derived CDs and bisphosphonate-derived CDs retain the chelation ability of calcium ions and can specifically bind calcium ions. The chemical environment bone-targeting value coordination constant K and chelation sites of EGTA-CDs were 6.48 × 104 M–1 and 4.12, respectively. A novel method was established to demonstrate the bone-targeting capability of chelate-functionalized carbon dots using fluorescence quenching in a simulated bone trauma microenvironment. EGTA-CDs exhibit superior bone-targeting ability compared with other aminocarboxyl-derived CDs and bisphosphonate-derived CDs. EGTA-CDs display exceptional specificity toward calcium ions and better bone affinity than ALN-CDs, suggesting their potential as novel bone-targeting drugs. EGTA-CDs with strong calcium ion chelating ability have calcium ion affinity in simulated body fluid and bone-targeting ability in a simulated bone trauma microenvironment. These findings offer new avenues for the development of advanced bone-targeting strategies.