Use of carbon nanodots for visualization of the degenerative area of aricular cartilage

We investigated the effectiveness of the penetration of CNDs of various sizes into the articular cartilage of various degrees of degeneration affected by osteoarthritis. We performed quantitative evaluations by the intensity of the fluorescent image of the degenerated area of the articular cartilage in vitro. Using colorimetric MTT assay, we found that our CNDs did not have cytotoxic effects on the cellular level in vitro, and this allowed us to emphasize the prospects for using these nanoparticles as dyes for a considerable amount of observation time.