Folic acid modified gelatine coated quantum dots as potential reagents for <it>in vitro </it>cancer diagnostics

• Main Authors: Gérard Valérie A, Maguire Ciaran M, Bazou Despina, Gun'ko Yurii K
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2011-11-01
• Series: Journal of Nanobiotechnology
• Subjects: Quantum Dots; Folic acid; cancer; bio-imaging
• Online Access: http://www.jnanobiotechnology.com/content/9/1/50

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gelatine coating was previously shown to effectively reduce the cytotoxicity of CdTe Quantum Dots (QDs) which was a first step towards utilising them for biomedical applications. To be useful they also need to be target-specific which can be achieved by conjugating them with Folic Acid (FA).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The modification of QDs with FA <it>via </it>an original "one-pot" synthetic route was proved successful by a range of characterisation techniques including UV-visible absorption spectroscopy, Photoluminescence (PL) emission spectroscopy, fluorescence life-time measurements, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS). The resulting nanocomposites were tested in Caco-2 cell cultures which over-express FA receptors. The presence of FA on the surface of QDs significantly improved the uptake by targeted cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The modification with folic acid enabled to achieve a significant cellular uptake and cytotoxicity towards a selected cancer cell lines (Caco-2) of gelatine-coated TGA-CdTe quantum dots, which demonstrated good potential for <it>in vitro </it>cancer diagnostics.</p>