Rapid ex vivo assessment of cancer prognosis by fluorescence imaging of nucleolus using nitrogen doped carbon dots.

Cancer severely threatens human health currently, promoting the rapid development of cancer treatment strategies. In addition to cancer therapy, assessment of cancer prognosis, which can evaluate the success with treatment and chances of recovery as well as assist to make subsequent therapeutic schedule, is also remarkably indispensable and important. Conventional technologies can't provide rapid and highly-sensitive assessment of cancer prognosis at cytological level. Herein, an effective nitrogen doped carbon dots with intrinsic nucleolus-targeting capability and high fluorescence quantum yield are synthesized, characterized and employed for fluorescence imaging of nucleolus, which is closely related to the biological alteration of cancer cell. The cancer prognosis thus can be accurately (limit of detection: 50 nM) and rapidly (5 min) assessed at subcellular organelle level from nucleolar characteristics, which are visualized and analyzed by the captured fluorescence images. Outstanding assessment performance endows the proposed technology with great potential for future clinical research. [Display omitted] • Nitrogen doped carbon dots are synthesized for fluorescence imaging of nucleolus related to the biological alteration of cancer cell. • The cancer prognosis can be assessed at subcellular organelle level, which is not achievable using conventional technologies. • The proposed assessment method for cancer prognosis shows faster and more sensitive features as compared with AgNOR method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]