Valorization of Yellow Oleander to Nitrogen Doped Carbon Dots: Theragnostic and Genotoxicity Assessment

摘要

Development of useful products from toxic or hazardous waste is a unique strategy to overcome their disposal. In this work, we report the valorization of the toxic flowers of Thevetia peruviana (TP) into blue fluorescent nitrogen doped carbon dots (N-CDs) with similar to 6.6 % nitrogen doping from a single source of biomass without using any external dopant. The hydrophilic N-CDs are biocompatible and show excitation-dependent emission. Cytotoxity studies revealed the N-CDs are selectively toxic towards the cancerous cells (DU-145, MDA MB-231, HepG2, and B16) but more biocompatible with normal CHO-K1 and HEK-293 cells. It has been observed that generation of reactive oxygen species in presence of N-CDs cause DNA damage and the unrepaired cells undergo apoptosis in G2/M phase. To investigate the toxicity to normal cells, we further carried out in-vitro and in-vivo genotoxicity studies to reveal its non-mitotoxic, non-clastogenic, and non-aneugenic properties.