CYTOTOXICITY EVALUATIONS OF FLUORESCENT CARBON NANOPARTICLES

Fluorescent nanoparticles have received much attention for their potential applications in biology and medicine, such as uses as fluorescence markers or imaging agents. Recently, surface-passivated carbon nanoparticles or "carbon dots" were demonstrated to be brightly fluorescent, thus representing a new platform for nanoscale fluorescent agents. For targeted bioapplications of carbon dots, an understanding of their toxicity behavior is necessary, including issues on potential defunctionalization of the dots in biological systems that might result in the exposure of the nanoscale carbon core. In this work, we performed cytotoxicity evaluations on both precursor carbon nanoparticles and carbon dots, from which the results suggested no significant cytotoxic effects.