Erlotinib Conjugated Nitrogen Doped Carbon Nanodots for Targeted Fluorescence Imaging of Human Pancreatic Cancer Cells

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in the world due to non-specific symptoms at early stages and late diagnosis. In this article, we report the use of nitrogen doped carbon nanodots (NCD) as fluorescent contrast agents for in vitro imaging of live pancreatic cancer cells. The surface of these NCDs was functionalised with tyrosine kinase inhibitor type anticancer drug named erlotinib. This targeting ligand enables specificin vitrotargeting of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) overexpressed human pancreatic cancer cell lines (PANC-1). The receptor-mediated fluorescence staining with targeted NCD was further tested by monitoringin vitrotargeting in L929 mouse fibroblast cells with normal EGFR expression. The confocal fluorescence microscopic images show uniform fluorescence staining on PANC-1 cells and a localised fluorescence staining on the central region of normal L929 cells. The fluorescence stability of targeted NCD even after conjugation with bovine serum albumin proved its potential for cellular imaging.