Carbon Dot Assemblies for Enhanced Cellular Uptake and Photothermal Therapy In Vitro.

Abstract: Constructing complex nanoarchitectures via self‐assembly with nanoparticle building blocks is a practical strategy that produces nanostructures with properties that are absent in the individual unit. In this work, we used hydrophilic carbon dots (C‐dots) as building blocks to form C‐dot assemblies. Compared to the individual C‐dot, the self‐assembled C‐dots showed about 30 nm red‐shift of absorption, resulting in the 5.1% increasing of photothermal conversion efficiency upon a 671 nm laser irradiation. More importantly, the C‐dot assemblies enable them can be efficiently uptaken by cancer cells. Meanwhile, in vitro study demonstrated the C‐dot assemblies can efficiently kill cancer cells than that of individual C‐dot upon irradiation for 5 min at equivalent C‐dot concentration. Our study may provide a new strategy for the efficient photothermal therapy of cancer based on C‐dots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]