Chiral carbon dots surfaces affect biological interactions

Abstract

The rational design of carbon nanodots gives access to functional surfaces with precise features to be exploited for selected purposes. Indeed, besides the introduction of organic functional groups, it is also possible to control the chirality of CNDs surfaces by using chiral precursors. The obtaining of CNDs with opposite chirality means analysing nanoparticles with the same major physicochemical properties such as optical features, hydrodynamic diameter, and colloidal stability. However, chirality could be expected to affect the interaction when treating biological effects due to the interfacing to a chiral environment. Only a detailed analysis about the comparison of the concentration of both chiral CNDs could give information about the differences in biological behaviour to be related to chirality. Indeed, analysing, by concentration error estimation, two important biological phenomena, the protein adsorption and cell internalization, it is possible to find out how chirality influences biological effects.