Abstract
We aimed at investigating the effect of carbon dots on the BALB/c mice immune system. Mice were respectively treated with different doses of carbon dots and saline. At 1 and 9 days after intravenous administration of carbon dots, splenocyte proliferation, subpopulation of the peripheral lymphocytes, and induction of primary immune responses in mice were investigated. The results showed that high dose of carbon dots could promote the percentages of CD3+ and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) secretion and decrease the proportions of CD4+/CD8+ on the first day after administration. At 9 days post exposure, the proliferation of splenocytes had a significant increase. IFN-γ secretion and proportions of CD3+/CD19+ were also found to have an obvious promotion, and both the percentages of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes were raised, whereas the expression of cytokines made little change in the treated groups, except for IL-12 which had a slight increase in the 50-mg/kg group. The weight coefficients and histological analysis of the spleen and thymus of the treated mice exerted fewer differences compared with those from the control mice. It suggests that carbon dots could influence the immune functions of normal BALB/c mice by inducing Th1 and Tc responses and that these effects were not enough to induce the morphological change of the immune organs.
Highlights
Two-photon-fluorescent nanoparticles, primarily quantum dots (QDs), have recently attracted much attention for their many promising applications, especially in the field of biomedical imaging [1,2] and detection [3,4,5]
We investigated the effects of carbon dots on the immune function of normal BALB/c mice to elucidate the interactions between carbon dots and the immune system and to explore more theoretic evidence for the application of carbon dots in the field of medical diagnosis and biotherapeutics
The Atomic force microscopy (AFM) height images and section analysis demonstrated that the diameters of the carbon dots were 3 to 8 nm and the sizes of nanoparticles were spherical and uniform (Figure 1c,d)
Summary
Two-photon-fluorescent nanoparticles, primarily quantum dots (QDs), have recently attracted much attention for their many promising applications, especially in the field of biomedical imaging [1,2] and detection [3,4,5]. These QDs are considered as being more advantageous over conventional organic dyes in terms of optical brightness, photostability, and resistance to metabolic degradation [6]. Sun et al discovered that nanosized pure carbon particles may be surface-passivated to exhibit bright photoluminescence in the visible and near-infrared spectral regions [8]
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