Synthesis of carbon dots from taurine as bioimaging agent and nanohybrid with ceria for antioxidant and antibacterial applications

•Water soluble carbon dots (CDs) were prepared froman amino acid“Taurine”.•The CDs were used as bioimaging agent.•Then CDs-CeO2 nanohybrid was synthesized.•The CDs and CDs-CeO2 nanohybridshowed excellent antioxidant potential.•The CDs and CDs-CeO2 nanohybridexhibited excellent antibacterial activity.•The CDs and CDs-CeO2 nanohybridexhibited no toxicity to human normal kidney epithelial cells. Here we have synthesized water soluble and biocompatible carbon dots (CDs) from taurine via thermal decomposition method. The CDs showed nearly spherical shape with diameter less than 10 nm. The CDs exhibited excitation dependent fluorescence emission and could be used for mammalian cell imaging. The CDs showed excellent DPPH and hydrogen peroxide radical scavenging activity in cell free system. Besides, the CDs also displayed significant intracellular radical scavenging activity in human normal kidney epithelial (NKE) cells. Furthermore, nanohybrids consisting of both CDs and nanoceria (CeO2) were prepared and tested for their biomedical applications. The nanohybrids showed significant antioxidant activities in both cell free and intracellular conditions. The CDs and nanohybrids possessed very little toxicity upto the concentration of 100 μg/mL when treated for 24 hours in human NKE cells. The CDs as well as nanohybrids further displayed significant bacterial growth inhibition against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria under dark as well as light illumination condition via the bacterial membrane damage. However, under the light illumination, the bacterial growth inhibition of CDs and nanohybrids was further enhanced due to the generation of reactive oxygen radicals and subsequent DNA degradation. A higher dose-dependent intracellular antioxidant and antibacterial activities of the nanohybrid is attributed to the synergistic effect of nanoceria and CDs. All these results clearly reflected that our synthesized CDs and their nanohybrids can be used for several biomedical applications.