One-pot synthesis of aqueous carbon quantum dots using bibenzoimidazolyl derivative and their antitumor activity against breast cancer cell lines

The synthesis and characterization of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) using small organic molecules as carbon source is becoming more and more prominent over recent years due to their extensive applications. Herein, we report the synthesis of CQDs by carbonizing an organic molecule, 1,7'-Dimethyl-2'-propyl-1H,3'H-[2,5']bi-benzoimidazolyl (DPBI). The crystallinity of DPBI-based CQDs is confirmed by XRD results, where, the observed peak at 25.8 degrees is attributed to the reflection plane (002). Further, the results from HRTEM studies revealed that the morphology of the particles were spherical in shape with an average size between 2 and 3 nm and interplanar spacing 0.329 nm between two lattice fringes. The biological activity of as-prepared CQDs has been tested with respect to its inherent antitumor property, where the CQDs exhibited significant anti-cancer property against breast cancer cell lines in vitro and also showed specificity of action against tumor cells in ex ovo chick choreoallentoic membrane (CAM), which was used as in vivo model to study differential action of CQDs, wherein they show least cytotoxicity to normal cells, which is concordant with the in vitro study carried out to analyze activity of CQDs on red blood cells (RBCs) and white blood cells (WBCs).