0000000000870111
AUTHOR
Mara Andrea Utzeri
showing 8 related works from this author
Carbon Nanodots as Functional Excipient to Develop Highly Stable and Smart PLGA Nanoparticles Useful in Cancer Theranostics
2020
Theranostic systems have attracted considerable attention for their multifunctional approach to cancer. Among these, carbon nanodots (CDs) emerged as luminescent nanomaterials due to their exceptional chemical properties, synthetic ease, biocompatibility, and for their photothermal and fluorescent properties useful in cancer photothermal therapy. However, premature renal excretion due to the small size of these particles limits their biomedical application. To overcome these limitations, here, hybrid poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA-CDs) nanoparticles with suitable size distribution and stability have been developed. CDs were decisive in the preparation of polymeric nanoparticles, not on…
Carbon Nanodots for On Demand Chemophotothermal Therapy Combination to Elicit Necroptosis: Overcoming Apoptosis Resistance in Breast Cancer Cell Lines
2020
Background: Engineered luminescent carbon nanodots (CDs) are appealing nanomaterials for cancer image-guided photothermal therapy combining near infrared (NIR)&ndash
Cholesterol-Inulin Conjugates for Efficient SN38 Nuclear Delivery: Nanomedicines for Precision Cancer Therapy
2022
An amphiphilic inulin-thiocholesterol conjugate (INU-Cys-TC) was strategically designed as a biodegradable core-shell nanocarrier of 7-ethyl-10-hydroxy-camptothecin (SN38) to enhance its solubility and stability in aqueous media, thus exploiting its brilliant anticancer effect. INU-Cys-TC was designed to have the hydrophilic inulin backbone (external shell) partially functionalized with hydrophobic thiocholesterol moieties (internal core) through a biodegradable disulfide bond due to cysteamine bridges. Thiocholesterol moieties impair redox-sensitive self-assembling abilities, yielding to nano-sized micelles in aqueous media capable of efficiently encapsulating a high amount of SN38 (DL = 8…
Functionalization of Metal and Carbon Nanoparticles with Potential in Cancer Theranostics
2021
Cancer theranostics is a new concept of medical approach that attempts to combine in a unique nanoplatform diagnosis, monitoring and therapy so as to provide eradication of a solid tumor in a non-invasive fashion. There are many available solutions to tackle cancer using theranostic agents such as photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) under the guidance of imaging techniques (e.g., magnetic resonance—MRI, photoacoustic—PA or computed tomography—CT imaging). Additionally, there are several potential theranostic nanoplatforms able to combine diagnosis and therapy at once, such as gold nanoparticles (GNPs), graphene oxide (GO), superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SP…
Decagram-Scale Synthesis of Multicolor Carbon Nanodots: Self-Tracking Nanoheaters with Inherent and Selective Anticancer Properties
2022
Carbon nanodots (CDs) are a new class of carbon-based nanoparticles endowed with photoluminescence, high specific surface area, and good photothermal conversion, which have spearheaded many breakthroughs in medicine, especially in drug delivery and cancer theranostics. However, the tight control of their structural, optical, and biological properties and the synthesis scale-up have been very difficult so far. Here, we report for the first time an efficient protocol for the one-step synthesis of decagram-scale quantities of N,S-doped CDs with a narrow size distribution, along with a single nanostructure multicolor emission, high near-infrared (NIR) photothermal conversion efficiency, and sel…
Hyaluronic acid dressing of Hydrophobic Carbon Nanodots: a Self-assembling Strategy of Hybrid Nanocomposites with Theranostic Potential
2021
We propose a rational design of hyaluronic acid-dressed red-emissive carbon dots (CDs), with a well-structured hydrophobic core capable of locally delivering high amount doxorubicin (Doxo) (> 9% w/w) and heat (hyperthermia) in a light stimuli sensitive fashion. We combined in a unique micelle-like superstructure the peculiar optical properties of CDs (NIR photothermal conversion and red fluorescence) with the ability of hyaluronic acid (HA) shell of stabilizing nanomedicines in aqueous environment and recognizing cancer cells overexpressing CD44 receptors on their membranes, thus giving rise to smart theranostic agents useful in cancer imaging and NIR-triggered chemo-phototherapy of solid t…
Pressure-Dependent Tuning of Photoluminescence and Size Distribution of Carbon Nanodots for Theranostic Anticancer Applications
2020
Carbon nanodots (CDs) have recently attracted attention in the field of nanomedicine because of the biocompatibility, cost-effective nature, high specific surface, good near infrared (NIR) photothermal conversion into heat and tunable fluorescence properties, which have paved the way toward incorporating use of CDs into innovative anticancer theranostic platforms. However, a reliable synthesis of CDs with established and controlled physiochemical proprieties is precluded owing to the lack of full manipulation of thermodynamic parameters during the synthesis, thus limiting their use in real world medical applications. Herein, we developed a robust solvothermal protocol which allow fine contr…
Printable Thermo- and Photo-stable Poly(D,L-lactide)/Carbon Nanodots Nanocomposites via Heterophase Melt-Extrusion Transesterification
2022
We propose for the first time an one-pot synthesis of carbon nanodots-poly(D,L-lactide) (CDs-PLA) nanocomposites, obtained by a simple reactive melt-extrusion process involving polar surface groups of multicolor CDs and ester bonds of PLA chains. Apart from providing an excellent method to produce polyester-coated CDs, our protocol allows obtaining perfect PLA@CDs blends giving rise to homogeneous extruded PLA@CDs filaments (ePLA@CDs) suitable for 3D printing applications (e.g., additive manufacturing for biomaterials and biodegradable encoded polymer ink technology). We demonstrate that ePLA@CDs filaments can be used to build a huge range of fluorescent objects with increasing architectura…