A Review of Promising Selected Agents Combined with Carbon Dots for Biomedical Applications

Carbon dots (CDs) are a new type of QD that has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years because of their multiple fascinating characteristics and advantages resulting from physical and optical properties, fluorescence, water solubility, low toxicity, facile synthesis, favorable quantum yield, long thermal storage resistance and photostability. CDs offer promising applications in therapeutics, diagnostics, optoelectronic devices etc. In this review conjugation and com­posite formation at nanoscale level between CDs and other materials for altering their properties for the desired therapeutic uses are discussed. CD in order to be suitable for its application-as a therapeutic agent it needs desired particle size, size distribution – as they affect the in-vivo distribution, stability, drug loading and drug release ability, uptake by cells, biological fate, toxicity, and targeting ability to a range of cellular and intracellular targets, easy mobility and capacity to cross the blood-brain bar­rier etc. Conjugating agents of biogenic origin, organic material, synthetic drugs and antibiotics as well as inorganic heteroatoms are discussed.