Evaluation of Anti-Inflammatory Drug-Conjugated Silicon Quantum Dots: Their Cytotoxicity and Biological Effect

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Sanshiro Hanada²  Kouki Fujioka¹  Yasuhiro Futamura²  Noriyoshi Manabe²  Akiyoshi Hoshino² 

[1] Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of DNA Medicine, Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo 105-8461, Japan; E-Mail:;Vice Director-General’s Lab, Research Institute, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan; E-Mails:

关键词: silicon quantum dot;    alminoprofen;    cyclooxygenase-2;    cytotoxicity and biological effect;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms14011323

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Silicon quantum dots (Si-QDs) have great potential for biomedical applications, including their use as biological fluorescent markers and carriers for drug delivery systems. Biologically inert Si-QDs are less toxic than conventional cadmium-based QDs, and can modify the surface of the Si-QD with covalent bond. We synthesized water-soluble alminoprofen-conjugated Si-QDs (Ap-Si). Alminoprofen is a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used as an analgesic for rheumatism. Our results showed that the “silicon drug” is less toxic than the control Si-QD and the original drug. These phenomena indicate that the condensed surface integration of ligand/receptor-type drugs might reduce the adverse interaction between the cells and drug molecules. In addition, the medicinal effect of the Si-QDs (i.e., the inhibition of COX-2 enzyme) was maintained compared to that of the original drug. The same drug effect is related to the integration ratio of original drugs, which might control the binding interaction between COX-2 and the silicon drug. We conclude that drug conjugation with biocompatible Si-QDs is a potential method for functional pharmaceutical drug development.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.