Biocompatibility and Antioxidant Capabilities of Carbon Dots Obtained from Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)

Sandra Rodríguez-Varillas,Álvaro J Obaya,Alfonso Fernández-González,Clarissa Murru,Rosana Badía-Laíño,Tania Fontanil

doi:10.3390/app12020773

Abstract

Since their discovery in 2004, carbon dots have attracted strong interest in the scientific community due to their characteristic properties, particularly their luminescence and their ease of synthesis and derivatization. Carbon dots can be obtained from different carbon sources, including natural products, resulting in a so-called ’green synthesis’. In this work, we obtain carbon dots from tomato juice in order to obtain nanoparticles with the antioxidant capabilities of the natural antioxidants present in that fruit. The obtained material is characterized regarding nanoparticle size distribution, morphology, surface functional groups and optic properties. Antioxidant properties are also evaluated through the DPPH method and their cytotoxicity is checked against human dermal fibroblast and A549 cell-lines. The results indicate that carbon dots obtained from tomato have a higher antioxidant power than other already-published antioxidant carbon dots. The bandgap of the synthesized materials was also estimated and coherent with the literature values. Moreover, carbon dots obtained from tomato juice are barely toxic for healthy cells up to 72 h, while they induce a certain cytotoxicity in A549 lung carcinoma cells.

Highlights

Carbon dots (CDs) were serendipitously discovered in 2004 by professor Scrievens during the purification by electrophoresis of single wall carbon nanotubes [1]
CDs are nanospheres with a diameter usually below 10 nm. They are made of carbon, with small amounts of other heteroatoms such as H, N and O appearing on the surface
They have a graphitic core with sp2 hybridization coating and a crust of amorphous carbon [2]. This nanomaterial presents very interesting properties such as high water solubility, low toxicity, characteristic luminescent properties, high biocompatibility, high chemical stability and easy functionalization. Those properties arise from the nano-size and surface functional groups, and can be modified or even ‘tuned’ according to the synthesis pathway, reaction condition or the reagents used, which is mainly the carbon source

Summary

Introduction

Carbon dots (CDs) were serendipitously discovered in 2004 by professor Scrievens during the purification by electrophoresis of single wall carbon nanotubes [1]. CDs are nanospheres with a diameter usually below 10 nm They are made of carbon, with small amounts of other heteroatoms such as H, N and O appearing on the surface. They have a graphitic core with sp hybridization coating and a crust of amorphous carbon [2]. This nanomaterial presents very interesting properties such as high water solubility, low toxicity, characteristic luminescent properties, high biocompatibility, high chemical stability and easy functionalization. CDs constitute a powerful tool in many scientific fields such as controlled drug delivery [3], clinic diagnose [4,5], catalysis [6], bioimaging [7]

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Results

Conclusion