High efficient delivery of siRNA into tumor cells by positively charged carbon dots

Nowadays development of safe and simple siRNA delivery system is still a great challenge. Carbon dots have attracted considerable attention in bioimaging, drug delivery, nanosensors, and other fields during the past few years. In this study, we successfully developed carbon dots (TEPA-CDs) as siRNA nanocarriers based on glucose and tetraethylene pentamine. TEPA-CDs have a mean diameter of less than 10 nm and positive charged decoration. TEPA-CDs could condense siRNA into stable complexes without no obvious premature release. Cellular uptake analysis clearly showed that Cy3-labeled siRNA could be uptake by HeLa cells. GFP expression in HeLa-EGFP cells could be significantly inhibited by TEPA-CDs/siRNA complexes. Our study indicated that TEPA-CDs could be used as a siRNA nanocarrier to tumor cells.