Peptide Functionalised Fluorescent Porous Silicon and Carbon Dot Nanoparticles for Breast Cancer Imaging

Breast cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancer. The conventional tumour imaging techniques are not highly efficient to selectively target tumour cells while leaving the healthy cells unaffected. Nanomedicine using nanoparticles as bio-imaging agents is a promising solution for more specific tumour imaging possibilities. Fluorescent nanoparticles can be functionalised with targeting ligands to enhance targeting specificity between the nanoparticles and overexpressed tumour biomarkers in the tumour region. Here, non-toxic porous silicon and biocompatible carbon dots have been conjugated with peptides to target legumain, a tumour biomarker overexpressed in solid tumours. This study focuses on the in vitro and in vivo legumain targeting efficiency using two types of linear and Y-shaped legumain targeting peptides for enhanced tumour targeting.