Carbon-based nanomaterials as an emerging platform for theranostics

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Abstract

Carbon-based nanomaterials emerge as promising platforms for theranostic applications in disease treatment and tissue repair.

Abstract

Carbon-based nanomaterials include fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, graphene and its derivatives, graphene oxide, nanodiamonds, and carbon-based quantum dots. Due to their unique structural dimensions and excellent mechanical, electrical, thermal, optical and chemical properties, these materials have attracted significant interest in diverse areas, including biomedical applications. Among them, there has been recent focus on the imaging of cells and tissues and the delivery of therapeutic molecules for disease treatment and tissue repair. The broad-range one-photon property of carbon based-nanomaterials together with their biocompatibility and ease of functionalization has made them candidate imaging agents for tumor diagnosis. In particular, the intrinsic two-photon fluorescence property of carbon based-nanomaterials in the long wavelength region (near-infrared II) allows deep-tissue optical imaging. This review highlights the recent development on carbon based-nanomaterials in the field of one-photon and two-photon imaging and discusses their possible and promising diagnostic and therapeutic applications for the treatment of various diseases including cancer.

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Raman spectroscopy in graphene

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PEGylated nanographene oxide for delivery of water-insoluble cancer drugs.

Zhuang Liu, Joshua T Robinson, Xiaoming Sun … (2008)

It is known that many potent, often aromatic drugs are water insoluble, which has hampered their use for disease treatment. In this work, we functionalized nanographene oxide (NGO), a novel graphitic material, with branched polyethylene glycol (PEG) to obtain a biocompatible NGO-PEG conjugate stable in various biological solutions, and used them for attaching hydrophobic aromatic molecules including a camptothecin (CPT) analogue, SN38, noncovalently via pi-pi stacking. The resulting NGO-PEG-SN38 complex exhibited excellent water solubility while maintaining its high cancer cell killing potency similar to that of the free SN38 molecules in organic solvents. The efficacy of NGO-PEG-SN38 was far higher than that of irinotecan (CPT-11), a FDA-approved water soluble SN38 prodrug used for the treatment of colon cancer. Our results showed that graphene is a novel class of material promising for biological applications including future in vivo cancer treatment with various aromatic, low-solubility drugs.