Optically active blue-emitting carbon dots to specifically target the Golgi apparatus

Inspired by the knowledge that one usual method to impart chirality to metal nanoparticles is to passivate them with ligands possessing chirality, in this context, a pair of optically active blue-emitting carbon dots (CDs) were prepared using citric acid and D/L-penicillamine (D/L-Pen) as the carbon sources through a two-step pyrolytic route. The second line of our research related to the effect of chiral CDs on cytotoxicity reveals that CDs coated with D-Pen, show less cytotoxicity than L-Pen-coated CDs, although generally the cytotoxicity of them is low. The subcellular localization examination reveals that the as-prepared CDs could specifically target and directly illuminate the Golgi apparatus, in spite that no obvious differences are observed between both of them. The discovery could provide a new alternative avenue to trace the cell state by real-time monitoring the Golgi morphology.