Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
First Advisor
Dr. Jon Dattelbaum
Second Advisor
Dr. Isaac Skromne
Abstract
Carbon nanodots (CDs) synthesized from carbon nanopowder under acid oxidative conditions have unique bone-bind properties that could be exploited for theranostic purposes. In the zebrafish vertebrate model system, CDs bind to bone with high affinity and specificity, they don’t appear to bind to other tissues and they do not affect the bone physiology or animal viability. Thus, carbon-derived CDs could be developed for the delivery of pharmacological agents to bones to treat diseases such as osteoporosis. Biologicals such as peptides, proteins and antibodies are a new and exciting class of pharmacological agents that have been successfully used in treating complex diseases untreatable by classic chemical drugs. To test if CDs can deliver peptides and proteins to bones, we conjugated CDs to a synthetic peptide containing a biotin and a six-histidine tag that could be used for purification, cargo delivery and detection beacons. Here we show that we can conjugate up to 3 peptides per CD, and that conjugation reduces CDs’ intrinsic photoluminescence. Significantly, peptide conjugation does to interfere with CD binding to bones nor with bone physiology. More importantly, we show that CD–peptides can deliver streptavidin, but not antibodies, to bones. We propose that this difference in protein delivery is due to differences in dissociation constants. Together, our data shows that carbon-derived CDs could be used for the delivery of peptides and proteins to bones.
Recommended Citation
Ali, Abigail, "Development and Functional Characterization of Carbon Nanodot-peptide Conjugates for the Treatment of Bone Disease" (2025). Honors Theses. 1795.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1795
