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Grant support

This work was supported by the Operational Program Research, Development, and Education-Project 'MSCAfellow4@MUNI' (No. CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/20_079/0017045). We acknowledge CzechNanoLab Research Infrastructure (LM2018110), supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (MEYS CR). We also acknowledge the support by the Strategy of the Czech Academy of Sciences program Qualitas (68081707). P. K. thanks the RECETOX Research Infrastructure (No. LM2018121) financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education (the CETOCOEN EXCELLENCE project No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_043/0009632) for supportive background. This project was also supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 857560. This publication reflects only the authors' view, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. We are grateful to Prof. Vladimir Sindela for allowing us to use the MW reactor, supported by the RECETOX research infrastructure (via MEYS CR under LM2018121).

Analysis of institutional authors

Márquez Sánchez-Carnerero, Esther MaríaAuthor

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Article

Coupling BODIPY with nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots to address the water solubility of photosensitizers

Publicated to:Materials Chemistry Frontiers. 6 (12): 1719-1726 - 2022-05-12 6(12), DOI: 10.1039/d2qm00200k

Authors: Jennifer Gomez, I; Russo, Marina; Arcidiacono, Orazio Angelo; Sanchez-Carnerero, Esther M; Klan, Petr; Zajickova, Lenka

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Abstract

The potential of photodynamic therapy (PDT) applications is based primarily on the selection of suitable photosensitizers (PSs). However, highly efficient PSs producing singlet oxygen and other reactive oxygen species (ROS) often have poor water solubility and tend to aggregate in biological media. The most common alternative strategy to address the solubility of PSs is based on difficult-to-control encapsulation or conjugation to liposomes, micelles, or other nanoparticles via surface non-covalent interactions. Covalent functionalization remains relatively unexplored for common PSs. Here, we report a strategy to use highly efficient but poorly water-soluble BODIPY PSs connected to the surface of nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs) through controlled covalent functionalization. These NGQD-BODIPY PSs do not aggregate in aqueous solutions and generate ROS upon irradiation with visible light, with singlet-oxygen production quantum yields up to 83%. In vitro fluorescence bioimaging was used to confirm that the PSs reside mostly in the cytoplasmic region of human cervical cancer cells (HeLa), and the system reduced the cell viability by similar to 85% upon irradiation.

Keywords

Carbon dotsDerivativesMechanismsMoleculesNanoparticlesPhotodynamic therapySinglet oxygen generation

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Materials Chemistry Frontiers due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2022, it was in position 78/344, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Materials Science, Multidisciplinary.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 1.08. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Field Citation Ratio (FCR) from Dimensions: 3.22 (source consulted: Dimensions Jun 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-06-04, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 16
  • Scopus: 14
  • OpenCitations: 15

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-06-04:

  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 11 (PlumX).

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Czech Republic.