Revealing the nature of optical activity in carbon dots produced from different chiral precursor molecules

Ma W., Wang B., Yang Y., Li J.

The integration of luminescence and chirality in carbon dots (CDs) encourages candidates to explore novel functions and applications of CDs, however, the preparation of chiral CDs is very limited. Herein, we report a hydrothermal method to fabricate chiral CDs by utilizing amino acid enantiomers as the precursors. LGln-CDs or DGln-CDs with uniform size of 3–4 nm show excitation-dependent blue fluorescence in solutions. Circular dichroism measurement confirms the opposite optical rotation of chiral CDs in the region from 200 nm to 300 nm, and the signals can be regulated by concentrations of CDs solution. Time-dependent density functional calculation reveals that polypeptides may exist on the surface of CDs due to the polycondensation of L/DGln at high temperature, and the optical activity of CDs originates from the stacking of neighboring carbonyl groups. The facile synthetic methodology proposed will provide potential opportunities for the preparation and application of chiral and chiroptical CDs-based materials.

Li D., Ushakova E.V., Rogach A.L., Qu S.

AbstractCarbon dots (CDs) represent a recently emerged class of luminescent materials with a great potential for biomedical theranostics, and there are a lot of efforts to shift their absorption and emission toward deep‐red (DR) to near‐infrared (NIR) region falling in the biological transparency window. This review offers comprehensive insights into the synthesis strategies aimed to achieve this goal, and the current approaches of modulating the optical properties of CDs over the DR to NIR region. The underlying mechanisms of their absorption, photoluminescence, and chemiluminescence, as well as the related photophysical processes of photothermal conversion and formation of reactive oxygen species are considered. The already available biomedical applications of CDs, such as in the photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, and their use as bioimaging agents and drug carriers are then shortly summarized.

Yang X., Sui L., Wang B., Zhang Y., Tang Z., Yang B., Lu S.

Carbon dots (CDs), as a kind of carbon nanomaterials, have attracted widespread attention due to their unique structure and excellent optical properties, and they are low-cost, environmentally friendly and biocompatible. However, the development of near-infrared (NIR) emission CDs remains a challenge. In this study, we successfully prepared CDs with a maximum emission of 714 nm using citric acid as the carbon source, thiourea and ammonium fluoride as the dopant source, and N,N-dimethylformamide as the solvent. The quantum yield (QY) is as high as 22.64%. Interestingly, the prepared CDs self-oxidize in the presence of oxygen, resulting in a blue shift of their emission. Therefore, they can be used to prepare white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) without adding other fluorescent substances. Notably, the work presented herein constitutes the first report of WLEDs preparation from single CDs.

Das A., Arefina I.A., Danilov D.V., Koroleva A.V., Zhizhin E.V., Parfenov P.S., Kuznetsova V.A., Ismagilov A.O., Litvin A.P., Fedorov A.V., Ushakova E.V., Rogach A.L.

Since chirality is one of the phenomena often occurring in nature, optically active chiral compounds are important for applications in the fields of biology, pharmacology, and medicine. With this in mind, chiral carbon dots (CDs), which are eco-friendly and easy-to-obtain light-emissive nanoparticles, offer great potential for sensing, bioimaging, enantioselective synthesis, and development of emitters of circularly polarized light. Herein, chiral CDs have been produced via two synthetic approaches using a chiral amino acid precursor L/D-cysteine: (i) surface modification treatment of achiral CDs at room temperature and (ii) one-pot carbonization in the presence of chiral precursor. The chiral signal in the absorption spectra of synthesized CDs originates not only from the chiral precursor but from the optical transitions attributed to the core and surface states of CDs. The use of chiral amino acid molecules in the CD synthesis through carbonization results in a substantial (up to 8 times) increase in their emission quantum yield. Moreover, the synthesized CDs show two-photon absorption which is an attractive feature for their potential bioimaging and sensing applications.

Rodger A., Marshall D.

Circular dichroism (CD) is used to give information about the chirality or handedness of molecular systems. It is particularly widely applied to determine the secondary structure of proteins such as biopharmaceutical products.

Liu S., He Y., Liu Y., Wang S., Jian Y., Li B., Xu C.

Chiral carbon dots are prepared by a simple and one-step hydrothermal reaction at 180 °C for 2 h using citric acid and d-proline as precursors, which show high asymmetric catalytic activity for enantioselective direct aldol condensation. This work provides a hint for the simple preparation of heterogeneous chiral catalysts.

Ragazzon G., Cadranel A., Ushakova E.V., Wang Y., Guldi D.M., Rogach A.L., Kotov N.A., Prato M.

Summary In recent years, carbon dots, graphene quantum dots, and other carbon nanocolloids have attracted a mounting interest as readily available, non-toxic, and tailorable carbon-based nanomaterials. One of the most fascinating features of carbon nanocolloids is their luminescence, the origin of which remains a source of dispute. The lack of understanding of the optical properties of carbon nanocolloids hampers their use in technological, environmental, and biomedical processes. Here, we review the current knowledge of excited states in carbon nanocolloids and related properties, inviting researchers to embrace the complexity of carbon nanocolloids. We point to the fundamental problems associated with their structure, photophysics, and photochemistry and highlight multiple directions of current and future research of this exciting class of nanomaterials.

Li B., Zhao S., Huang L., Wang Q., Xiao J., Lan M.

Carbon dots (CDs) are novel zero-dimensional carbonaceous nanomaterial, and they are featured with an attractive combination of physical, chemical, and biomedical properties including wide absorption spectrum, tunable fluorescence, excellent water solubility, outstanding photostability, and biocompatibility, which leads to their diverse applications as optically functional materials in various fields, e.g., fluorescence sensing, bioimaging, and drug delivery. Recently, it was revealed that CDs could be used as an effective photosensitizer to generate reactive oxygen species under light excitation, and/or a photothermal agent to convert light energy into heat, which enable them to be applied in photodynamic therapy or photothermal therapy for cancer treatment. In this review, we summarize the latest progress of research on CDs in phototherapy, including their use as nanocarriers for organic phototherapy agents, and highlight the strategies which are adopted to improve the therapeutic efficacy of CDs-based phototheranostics. Furthermore, we also discuss the challenges and prospects of the CDs-based phototheranostics towards clinical applications. We hope this review will provide critical insights to inspire new exciting discoveries on CDs from both fundamental and practical views so as to prompt their advances in the phototherapy.

Zhang M., Ma Y., Wang H., Wang B., Zhou Y., Liu Y., Shao M., Huang H., Lu F., Kang Z.

Chiral carbon dots (CDs) integrated the advantages of achiral CDs and the unique chiral property, which expand the prospect of the biological applications of CDs. However, the structure control and the origin of chirality for chiral CDs remain unclear. Herein, chiral CDs were obtained by thermal polymerization of chiral amino acids and citric acid, and their handedness of chirality could be controlled by adjusting the reaction temperature, which leads to different kinds of surface modifications. With aliphatic amino acids as a chiral source, all of the CDs that reacted at different temperatures (90-200 °C) have the same handedness of the chiral source. But with aromatic amino acids as a chiral source, CDs with maintained or inversed handedness compared with the chiral source could be obtained by adjusting the reaction temperature. Below a temperature of 120 °C, the chiral source was modified with CDs by esterification and transferred the handedness of chirality; at high temperatures (above 150 °C), which mainly connected by amidation accompanying with the formation of rigid structure generated by the π conjugation between the aromatic nucleus of chiral source and the carbon core of CDs, caused the inversing of the chiral signal. Further, we investigated the chiral effects of CDs on the glucose oxidase activity for a highly sensitive electrochemical biosensor.

Yi Z., Li X., Zhang H., Ji X., Sun W., Yu Y., Liu Y., Huang J., Sarshar Z., Sain M.

Stable blue fluorescent nitrogen doped carbon dots (N-CDs) with a very high quantum yield up to 81% has been reported for the first time. Novel N-CDs were synthesized through an efficient and rapid one-step hydrothermal synthesis process from diethylenetriamine as nitrogen source and a novel carbon source trans-aconitic acid. The nanosized particles of N-CDs were in the range of 2–8 nm and uniformly distributed in molecular level. The N-CDs showed high selectivity toward Fe 3+ with low detection limit of 10.42 nmol L −1 (with corresponding linear range of 2–50 μmol L −1 ) enabling them for ion detection application and also exhibited high fluorescence stability in extreme pH conditions. Novel N-CDs also presented a green emission shift under acidic condition (pH~2) which makes them a potential sensing probe for security papers, food packaging and bio-medical detection sensors. A security paper sensor device has been fabricated and its operation function has been validated by making real time detection of color. The novel and facile to manufacture carbon dots has potential applications ranging from biological nano-sensors for security document to color-switch sensing and bio-imaging. The nitrogen-doped carbon dots synthesized from diethylenetriamine and trans-aconitic acid with a very high quantum yield of 81% provided high photoluminescence properties and good sensitivity and selectivity for Fe 3+ detection. They also presented color switching in high acidic media enabling them to be used as pH sensor and security ink. • Synthesizing of N-CDs through rapid one-step hydrothermal method from diethylenetriamine and trans-aconitic acid. • Significantly high quantum yield up to 81% and good photoluminescence behavior under UV light for prepared carbon dots. • N-CDs as potential probes for sensors and bio-imaging applications due to high selectivity and sensitivity toward Fe 3+ . • Fabricating a security paper sensor device by N-CDs due to their ability of color switching under acidic media.

Wang B., Yu J., Sui L., Zhu S., Tang Z., Yang B., Lu S.

As an emerging building unit, carbon dots (CDs) have been igniting the revolutionaries in the fields of optoelectronics, biomedicine, and bioimaging. However, the difficulty of synthesizing CDs in aqueous solution with full‐spectrum emission severely hinders further investigation of their emission mechanism and their extensive applications in white light emitting diodes (LEDs). Here, the full‐color‐emission CDs with a unique structure consisting of sp3‐hybridized carbon cores with small domains of partially sp2‐hybridized carbon atoms are reported. First‐principle calculations are initially used to predict that the transformation from sp3 to sp2 hybridization redshifts the emission of CDs. Guided by the theoretical predictions, a simple, convenient, and controllable route to hydrothermally prepare CDs in a single reaction system is developed. The prepared CDs have full‐spectrum emission with an unprecedented two‐photon emission across the whole visible color range. These full‐color‐emission CDs can be further nurtured by slight modifications of the reaction conditions (e.g., temperature, pH) to generate the emission color from blue to red. Finally a flexible LEDs with full‐color emission by using epoxy CDs films is developed, indicating that the strategy affords an industry translational potential over traditional fluorophores.

Kuznetsova V., Gromova Y., Martinez-Carmona M., Purcell-Milton F., Ushakova E., Cherevkov S., Maslov V., Gun’ko Y.K.

Abstract Chirality is one of the most fascinating occurrences in the natural world and plays a crucial role in chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, and medicine. Chirality has also been envisaged to play an important role in nanotechnology and particularly in nanophotonics, therefore, chiral and chiroptical active nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted a lot of interest over recent years. Optical activity can be induced in NPs in several different ways, including via the direct interaction of achiral NPs with a chiral molecule. This results in circular dichroism (CD) in the region of the intrinsic absorption of the NPs. This interaction in turn affects the optical properties of the chiral molecule. Recently, studies of induced chirality in quantum dots (QDs) has deserved special attention and this phenomenon has been explored in detail in a number of important papers. In this article, we review these important recent advances in the preparation and formation of chiral molecule–QD systems and analyze the mechanisms of induced chirality, the factors influencing CD spectra shape and the intensity of the CD, as well as the effect of QDs on chiral molecules. We also consider potential applications of these types of chiroptical QDs including sensing, bioimaging, enantioselective synthesis, circularly polarized light emitters, and spintronic devices. Finally, we highlight the problems and possibilities that can arise in research areas concerning the interaction of QDs with chiral molecules and that a mutual influence approach must be taken into account particularly in areas, such as photonics, cell imaging, pharmacology, nanomedicine and nanotoxicology.

Wang S., Chen L., Wang J., Du J., Li Q., Gao Y., Yu S., Yang Y.

Carbon dots (CDs) have shown great potential in drug delivery and biological imaging applications. In this work, a doxorubicin (DOX) delivery carrier and imaging probe for liver cancer-targeted therapy was designed based on CDs with high fluorescence quantum yield (97%), aiming to enhance the antitumor activity and imaging efficiency. Folic acid (FA), which showed high expression in hepatoma cells, was used as targeting components to modify CDs (FA-CDs), and then FA-CDs-DOX was obtained by loading DOX. Results show that CDs and FA-CDs have good biocompatibility, and the DOX release from FA-CDs-DOX is targeted and selective. Confocal microscope demonstrates that FA-CDs-DOX has excellent ability of fluorescence imaging in liver cancer cells. The imaging in vivo shows the fluorescence intensity of FA-CDs-DOX is strong enough to penetrate tumor tissue and skin, further verifying its enhanced-fluorescent imaging effects. Tumor inhibition in vivo indicates that the targeting ability of FA-CDs-DOX is significantly higher than that of free DOX, showing obvious better therapeutic effect. To sum up, the targeted and fluorescent drug delivery system based on CDs with high fluorescence quantum yield show an excellent imaging in vivo and tumor inhibition effect, which provide a novel strategy for promoting the potential clinical application of CDs in liver cancer treatment.

Gauger A.J., Hershberger K.K., Bronstein L.M.

Theranostics is a fast-growing field due to demands for new, efficient therapeutics which could be precisely delivered to the target site using multimodal imaging with enhancing auxiliary actions. In this review article we discuss theranostic nanoplatforms containing polymers and magnetic nanoparticles along with other components. Magnetic nanoparticles allow for both diagnostic and therapeutic (hyperthermia) capabilities, while polymers can be reservoirs for drugs and are easily functionalized for cell targeting. We focus on the most important design strategies to achieve optimal theranostic effects as well as the roles of different components included in theranostics, reviewing the literature from the last five years.

Wang H., Haydel P., Sui N., Wang L., Liang Y., Yu W.W.

Carbon dots (CDs) with solvatochromic emission colors in different solvents have attracted much attention as a new class of luminescent nanomaterial owing to their facile synthesis and low production cost. In this work, we prepared two kinds of CDs with solvatochromic emissions: green emission CDs (G-CDs) and multicolor emission CDs (M-CDs). G-CDs synthesized from o-phenylenediamine exhibited weak photoluminescence emission (quantum yield 2.8%–6.1%) and 39 nm solvatochromic shifts (492–531 nm). In contrast, M-CDs prepared from o-phenylenediamine and 4-aminophenol showed 87 nm solvatochromic shift range (505–592 nm) and much higher photoluminescence quantum yield (18.4%–32.5%). The two CDs exhibited different emission, absorption, and photoluminescence lifetime. The origin of solvatochromic shifts and the formation mechanism of CDs were demonstrated by analyzing the structures and compositions of two CDs. High percentages of pyrrolic nitrogen and amino nitrogen make wider solvatochromic shifts and higher quantum yields. The results were well supported by density functional theory calculations. This effective strategy to expand solvatochromic shift range and improve quantum yields could open a new window to prepare satisfied solvatochromic carbon dots.

Pei H., Zhang Z., Ouyang M., Liang H., Liu J., Li S., Zhang H., Qi Y., Wei L., Liu C., Shi L., Guo R., Liu N., Mo Z.

Zhang Y., Yang Y., Ding S., Zeng X., Li T., Hu Y., Lu S.

AbstractBiological lasers, representing innovative miniaturized laser technology, hold immense potential in the fields of biological imaging, detection, sensing, and medical treatment. However, the reported gain media for biological lasers encounter several challenges complex preparation procedures, high cost, toxicity concerns, limited biocompatibility, and stability issues along with poor processability and tunability. These drawbacks have impeded the sustainable development of biological lasers. Carbon dots (CDs), as a novel solution‐processable gain materials characterized by facile preparation, low cost, low toxicity, excellent biocompatibility, high stability, easy modification, and luminescence tuning capabilities along with outstanding luminescence performance. Consequently, they find extensive applications in diverse fields such as biology, sensing, photoelectricity, and lasers. Henceforth, they are particularly suitable for constructing biological lasers. This paper provides a comprehensive review on the classification and application of existing biological lasers while emphasizing the advantages of CDs compared to other gain media. Furthermore, it presents the latest progress made by utilizing CDs as gain media and forecasts both promising prospects and potential challenges for biological lasers based on CDs. This study aims to enhance understanding of CD lasers and foster advancements in the field of biological lasers.

Li Y., Liu Z., Ren H., Chen C.

The dyeing industry wastewater has greatly hampered the ecological environment. The carbon quantum dots (CQDs) is a promising catalyst for photocatalytic degradation. To control the specified structure of CQDs, a designable-green deep eutectic solvents (DESs) was targeted as the precursor. In this work, a copper-doped solid-state Cu-CQDs was successfully prepared by combustion method from glycerol/choline chloride/CuCl2·2H2O DESs, and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, XRD, XPS, UV–Vis spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy. The analysis revealed that the metallic copper-doped Cu-CQDs have better morphological and structural properties and exhibit good optics characteristics. The prepared CQDs were applied to the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine-B (RhB). It was found that the ⋅O2− was the main active specie, and it can efficient degrade RhB up to 95%.

Ponnusamy A., Khan A., Prodpran T., Kim J.T., Benjakul S., Rhim J.

S G.D., Vijaya J.J., Winston A.J., M M.K., Akash K., Shibu A.

Wang X., Yan W., Pang D., Cai J.

Review of synthesis strategies for circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) inorganic quantum dots, influencing factors, theoretical insight into CPL mechanisms, and future applications/prospects. Images reproduced with permission, details in article.

Wang X., Bai Q., Yan M., Wang H., Xu Y., Ma S., Bo C., Ou J.

Zhang H., Chen P., Shi W., Qu A., Sun M., Kuang H.

AbstractIn this study, polypeptide TGGGPLGVARGKGGC‐induced chiral manganese dioxide supraparticles (MnO2 SPs) are prepared for sensitive quantification of matrix metalloproteinase‐9 (MMP‐9) in vitro and in vivo. The results show that L‐type manganese dioxide supraparticles (L‐MnO2 SPs) exhibited twice the affinity for the cancer cell membrane receptor CD47 (cluster of differentiation, integrin‐associated protein) than D‐type manganese dioxide supraparticles (D‐MnO2 SPs) to accumulate at the tumor site after surface modification of the internalizing arginine‐glycine‐aspartic acid (iRGD) ligand, specifically reacting with the MMP‐9, disassembling into ultrasmall nanoparticles (NPs), and efficiently underwent renal clearance. Furthermore, L‐MnO2 facilitates the quantification of MMP‐9 in mouse tumor xenografts, as demonstrated by circular dichroism (CD) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within 2 h. A strong linear relationship is observed between MMP‐9 concentration and both CD and MRI intensity, ranging from 0.01 to 10 ng mL−1. The corresponding limits of detection (LOD) are 0.0054 ng mL−1 for CD and 0.0062 ng mL−1 for MRI, respectively. hese SPs provide a new approach for exploring chiral advanced biosensors for early diagnosis of cancer.

Pandey P.K., Sathyavageeswaran A., Holmlund N., Perry S.L.

Bhattacharya A., Samanta D., Shaw M., Shaik M.A., Basu R., Mondal I., Pathak A.

Zhang Z., Wang D., Yan X., Yan Y., Lin L., Ren Y., Chen Y., Feng L.

Since the chiral emission of excited states is observed on carbon dots (CDs), exploration towards the design and synthesis of chiral CDs nanomaterials with circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) properties has been at a brisk pace. In this regard, the "host and guest" co-assembly strategy based on the combination of CDs and chiral templates has been of unique interest recently for its convenient operation, multicolor tunable CPL, and wide application of prepared CDs-composited materials in optoelectronic devices and information encryption. However, the existing chiral templates that match perfectly with chiral CDs exhibiting optical activity both in ground and excited states are rather scarce. In this work, we synthesize the chiral CDs that could induce the spontaneous supramolecular self-assembly of N-(9-fluorenylmethox-ycarbonyl) (Fmoc)-protected glutamic acid to form chiral hydrogels with helical nanostructure. The co-assembled hydrogels show powerful chiral template function, which not only enable chiral CDs with a luminescence dissymmetry factor (g

Ai L., Xiang W., Li Z., Liu H., Xiao J., Song H., Yu J., Song Z., Zhu K., Pan Z., Wang H., Lu S.

AbstractCircularly polarized luminescence (CPL) has numerous applications in optical data storage, quantum computing, bioresponsive imaging, liquid crystal displays, and backlights in three‐dimensional (3D) displays. In addition to their competitive optical properties, carbon dots (CDs) benefit from simple and low‐cost preparation, facile post‐modification, and excellent resistance to photo‐ and chemical bleaching after carbonization. Combining the superior optical performance with polarization peculiarities through hierarchical structure engineering is imperative for the development of CDs. In this study, hydrophobic interactions of aromatic ligands, which participate in the surface‐ligand post‐modification process on the ground‐state chiral carbon core, are employed to drive the oriented assembly. Furthermore, the residual chiral amides on CDs form multiple hydrogen bonds during gradual aggregation, causing the assembled materials to form an asymmetric bending structure. Superficial ligands interfere with the optical dynamics of the exciton radiation transition and stabilize the excited state of the assembled materials to achieve a circularly polarized signal. The linkage ligands overcome the frequent aggregation‐induced quenching phenomenon that present difficulties in conventional CDs, facilitate the assembly of self‐supporting films, and improve chiral optical expression. The full‐color and white CPL are manipulated by simply adjusting the functional groups of the ligands, which also illustrates the versatility of the post‐modification strategy. Finally, large chiral flexible films and multicolor chiral light‐emitting diodes based on the stable chiral powder phosphors were constructed, thereby providing feasible materials and technical support for flexible 3D displays.

Ai L., Xiang W., Li Z., Liu H., Xiao J., Song H., Yu J., Song Z., Zhu K., Pan Z., Wang H., Lu S.

AbstractCircularly polarized luminescence (CPL) has numerous applications in optical data storage, quantum computing, bioresponsive imaging, liquid crystal displays, and backlights in three‐dimensional (3D) displays. In addition to their competitive optical properties, carbon dots (CDs) benefit from simple and low‐cost preparation, facile post‐modification, and excellent resistance to photo‐ and chemical bleaching after carbonization. Combining the superior optical performance with polarization peculiarities through hierarchical structure engineering is imperative for the development of CDs. In this study, hydrophobic interactions of aromatic ligands, which participate in the surface‐ligand post‐modification process on the ground‐state chiral carbon core, are employed to drive the oriented assembly. Furthermore, the residual chiral amides on CDs form multiple hydrogen bonds during gradual aggregation, causing the assembled materials to form an asymmetric bending structure. Superficial ligands interfere with the optical dynamics of the exciton radiation transition and stabilize the excited state of the assembled materials to achieve a circularly polarized signal. The linkage ligands overcome the frequent aggregation‐induced quenching phenomenon that present difficulties in conventional CDs, facilitate the assembly of self‐supporting films, and improve chiral optical expression. The full‐color and white CPL are manipulated by simply adjusting the functional groups of the ligands, which also illustrates the versatility of the post‐modification strategy. Finally, large chiral flexible films and multicolor chiral light‐emitting diodes based on the stable chiral powder phosphors were constructed, thereby providing feasible materials and technical support for flexible 3D displays.

Astafiev A.A., Shakhov A.M., Tskhovrebov A.G., Shatov A.A., Syrchina M.S., Shepel D.V., Nadtochenko V.A.

Bao L., Luo W., Li Q., Zhang Y., Zhang Z., Li X., Wang L., Zhang J., Huang K., Yu X., Xu L.

Metal dyshomeostasis is one of the pathological features of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Cu2+ is believed to induce the formation of neurotoxic β-amyloid (Aβ) aggregates and aggravate oxidative damage. It is challenging to take effective therapeutic interventions towards the complicated pathogenesis related to Cu2+. Herein, chiral carbon dots were proposed for Cu2+-related AD therapy. The chiral CDs were prepared based on the ternary carbon sources, using L/d-cysteine as the chiral carbon source, citric acid as the carbonization source and β-cyclodextrin as the chirality inducer, reserving and enhancing the chirality of CDs. Compared to L-Cys-CDs, D-Cys-CDs exhibited enhanced chirality, stronger affinity towards Cu2+ and comparable antioxidant ability, but better inhibition on peroxidase-like activity of Cu2+ or Aβ42-Cu2+. Thus, D-Cys-CDs performed better to inhibit Cu2+-induced Aβ aggregation. Meanwhile, D-Cys-CDs can alleviate the cytotoxicity of Aβ42-Cu2+ with satisfactory anti-inflammation effect and scavenging ability towards intracellular reactive oxygen species. D-Cys-CDs succeeded in reducing Aβ deposits and releasing paralysis for the AD model CL2120 nematodes. D-Cys-CDs with an enantiomeric effect on Cu2+-induced Aβ aggregation and the peroxidase-like activity of Cu2+ was promising as the multifunctional therapeutic agent for Cu2+-induced AD therapy.