Incandescent porous carbon microspheres to light up cells: solution phenomena and cellular uptake

Abstract

Carbon based materials are attractive for biological applications because of their excellent biocompatibility profile. Porous carbons with high specific surface area are particularly interesting because it is possible in principle to leverage their properties to deliver high drug payloads. In this work, porous carbon microspheres with high specific surface area were prepared and studied in solution and in cells. Raman optical tweezer trapping of microspheres, excited by 532 nm, results in graphitization and 10 incandescence in solvents that display poor heat conduction. Fluorescence confocal microscopy imaging was used to demonstrate the uptake of fluorescently labelled microspheres by cells and the ability to leverage their optical absorptivity in order to cause carbon graphitization and cell death.

Natural reducing agents for electroless nanoparticle deposition: Mild synthesis of metal/carbon nanostructured microspheres

“…1c shows the Raman spectrum of CMs obtained via USP after particle washing and drying on a glass slide. The Raman spectrum is consistent with that observed for highly graphitic amorphous carbons: it displays two peaks with maxima at 1598 and 1358 cm -1 that we assign to the G and D bands of amorphous carbons, respectively [24,37]. The spectrum in Fig.…”

“…Porous carbon microspheres are particularly advantageous for nanoparticle support since they can leverage all of the advantages of carbon materials while displaying a high specific surface and good transport/delivery properties, as recently shown by work in our group [24]; however, their applications as nanoparticle support have remained relatively unexplored.…”

“…Synthesis of carbon and metal/carbon microspheres. Carbon microspheres (CMs) were synthesized using ultrasonic spray pyrolysis as previously reported [24,33]. Briefly, this method involves nebulising a precursor solution of dichloroacetate to generate droplets with a narrow size distribution using a 1.67…”

Green Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles via Natural Extracts: The Biogenic Nanoparticle Corona and Its Effects on Reactivity

“…[30][31][32] The Raman tweezers apparatus consists of a CW Verdi V8 (Coherent) with laser beam wavelength of 532 nm, in combination with an Leica microscope equipped with a 60× NA 1.2 water immersion objective lens. For particle trapping and acquisition of Raman spectra, the laser was attenuated to a power of 2.2 mW, measured at the entrance aperture of the objective lens, yielding approximately 1.4 mW at the objective output.…”

Mesoporous carbon biomaterials

“…Based on these characteristics, this composite nanocarrier is promising for the delivery of water-insoluble therapeutic agents and cancer theranostics. Furthermore, MCNs could be covalently grafted with fluorescein (e.g., 6-aminofluorescein) to study endocytosis by confocal fluorescent imaging [85].…”