Red Emissive Carbon Dots Prepared from Polymers as An Efficient Nanocarrier for Coptisine Delivery In Vivo and In Vitro

Negatively charged fluorescent carbon dots (CDs, E m =608 nm) were hydrothermally prepared from thiophene phenylpropionic acid polymers and then successfully loaded with the positively charged anticancer cargo coptisine, which suffers from poor bioavailability. The formed CDs-Coptisine complexes were thoroughly characterized by particle size, morphology, drug loading efficiency, drug release, cellular uptake and cellular toxicity in vitro  and anti-tumor activities in vivo . In this nano-carrier system, red emissive CDs possesses multiple advantages as follows: 1) high drug loading efficiency (>96%); 2) sustained drug release; 3) enhanced drug efficacy towards cancer cells; 4) EPR effect; 5) drug release tracing with near-infrared imaging. These properties indicated that red emissive CDs prepared from polymers could be used as a novel drug delivery system with integrated therapeutic and imaging functions in cancer therapy, which are expected to have great potential in future clinical applications.