Issue 29, 2024

Chiral quantum dots for bioapplications

Abstract

Chiral quantum dots (QDs), an emerging new class of artificial chiral materials, have attracted rapidly growing interest due to their fascinating chiral activity properties and their wide range of applications. For biological applications, understanding the origin of chiral QDs provides guidelines for designing chiral nanomedicines with enantiospecific properties, while increasing the intensity of chirality offers higher signal strength in vivo. Encouraged by the evolving discoveries of these novel artificial chiral materials, we believe it is necessary to systematically summarize the development of chiral QDs in biological applications. In this review, we summarize the mechanisms underlying the origin of chiral QDs and present examples where the presence of chirality in QDs is conferred by intrinsic chirality, ligand-induced chirality and self-assembled chirality. We then outline the tools for increasing the g-factor of chiral quantum dots, which is important for in vivo applications. Furthermore, some specific examples of chiral quantum dots in biological applications such as cancer and neurodegenerative disease therapy are discussed. Finally, we discuss how we can use chiral quantum dots to address some of the key challenges in biological applications and also raise some important questions that remain to be answered in the future.

Graphical abstract: Chiral quantum dots for bioapplications

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
14 5 2024
Accepted
22 6 2024
First published
24 6 2024

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2024,12, 10825-10836

Chiral quantum dots for bioapplications

G. Li, J. Zheng, J. Li, J. Kang, X. Jin, A. Guo, Z. Chen, X. Fei, K. Wang, H. Liu, H. Zhao, W. Liu and G. Yang, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2024, 12, 10825 DOI: 10.1039/D4TC01979B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements