Carbon Dots (CDs) are carbon based nanoparticles with average diameters of 10 nm. They are distinguished for their fluorescent properties, which has allowed their application in the development of techniques for bioimage and radiotherapy. Nevertheless they have other applications such as controlled drug release and biosensors. Given their importance in techniques for treatment and diagnostic, when it comes to their intrinsic toxicity literature has worried more about determining cytotoxicity on cancer cell lines. Taking into account that CDs may accumulate in healthy organs or tissue that surrounds tumors, it is of great importance to determine their cytotoxicity on healthy cell lines. As a consequence, the objective of this project was to determine the cytotoxicity of CDs on the two cell lineages derived from healthy tissue 3T3-L1 (preadipocytes) and Vero (Kidney). For this purpose, carbon dots were synthesized using citric acid as precursor and ethanol and N, N-Dimethylformamide as solvents, cytotoxicity was measured using the Trypan Blue and MTT assays, two controls were stablished a positive control (toxic) and a negative control (non-toxic). The statistical analysis did not show detectable cytotoxicity at concentrations of CDs in the range from 50 to 500 μg/mL. With this thesis work the bases of the cytotoxicity of a nanoplatform of carbon dots in the first stage of development were established, whose final purpose is to create a theranostic platform for radiotherapy.
