Maltase Decorated by Chiral Carbon Dots with Inhibited Enzyme Activity for Glucose Level Control

Abstract

Carbon dots (CDs) have attracted increasing attention in disease therapy owing to their low toxicity and good biocompatibility. Their therapeutic effect strongly depends on the CDs structure (e.g., size or functional groups). However, the impact of CDs chirality on maltase and blood glucose level has not yet been fully emphasized and studied. Moreover, in previous reports, chiral CDs with targeted optical activity have to be synthesized from precursors of corresponding optical rotation, severely limiting chiral CDs design. Here, chiral CDs with optical rotation opposite to that of the precursor are facilely prepared through electrochemical polymerization. Interestingly, their chirality can be regulated by simply adjusting reaction time. At last, the resultant (+)‐DCDs (700 µg mL−1) are employed to modify maltase in an effort to regulate the hydrolytic rate of maltose, showing an excellent inhibition ratio to maltase of 54.7%, significantly higher than that of (−)‐LCDs (15.5%) in the same reaction conditions. The superior performance may be attributed to the preferable combination of DCDs with maltase. This study provides an electrochemical method to facilely regulate CDs chirality, and explore new applications of chiral CDs as antihyperglycemic therapy for controlling blood glucose levels.

Chiral Self-Assembly of Porphyrins Induced by Chiral Carbon Dots

“…Kang et al reported that chiral CDots [(+)-D-CDots or (–)-L-CDots] could be prepared by electrochemical polymerization for 2–6 days from L- or D-glutamic acid in aqueous alkali, and the chirality of CDots could be regulated and even reversed by controlling electrolysis time. Moreover, the synthesized chiral carbon dots can modify maltose to different degrees to control the hydrolysis rate of glucose (Zhang et al, 2019 ). Recently, Yang and co-workers reported that the chiral carbon dots derived from cysteine can mimic topoisomerase I, which can selectively mediate the topological rearrangement of supercoiled DNA.…”

Carbon Nanoparticles Inhibit Α-Glucosidase Activity and Induce a Hypoglycemic Effect in Diabetic Mice

“…They may occupy the active sites or other sites on α-glucosidase, and then, the α-glucosidase/CNP hybrids are likely to hinder the combination of the enzyme with the substrate, reducing enzymatic activity. Another possibility is that the α-glucosidase/CNP hybrids combine with substrate molecules to form an α-glucosidase/CNP/glucose complex that is not capable of releasing the enzymatic lysis products, and hence a lower blood-glucose level is produced [29].…”

Recent Advances in Functional Carbon Quantum Dots for Antitumour

“…With the function of inhibiting maltose activity, chiral CQDs were fabricated from L-or D-glutamic acid through electrochemical methods to be used as a candidate drug for controlling blood sugar. 46 Yen et al reported a three-electrode electrochemical method for the direct synthesis of high-quality CQDs in pure water electrolyte. 61 This method provides a step for the preparation of aqueous CQD solutions without further postprocessing, such as filtration, dialysis, centrifugation, column chromatography and gel electrophoresis.…”

“…This review outlines the features and characterizations of CQDs, introduces the preparation of CQDs, elaborates the application of CQDs in antitumour applications, including drug delivery, phototherapy, monitoring and auto-antitumour applications, and discusses the design of related topics. method refers to the separation of CQDs with small particle sizes from carbon-based materials (such as CNTs, CF, graphite) by chemical or physical methods, including arc discharge, 22 electrochemical methods, 46 chemical oxidation, 47 laser ablation 48 and combustion. 49 Contrary to the "top-down" method, the "bottom-up" method mainly refers to the formation of CQDs by carbonization and polymerization of a series of small molecules through chemical reactions, including hydrothermal methods, 50 microwave methods 55 and template methods.…”