Common in myopia and aging, vitreous opacities arise from clumped collagen fibers within the vitreous body that cast shadows on the retina, appearing as ‘floaters’ to the patient. Vitreous opacities degrade contrast sensitivity function and can cause significant impairment in vision-related quality-of-life, representing an unmet and underestimated medical need. One therapeutic approach could be the use of versatile light-responsive nanostructures which (i) interfere with the formation of collagen fibers and/or (ii) destroy aggregates of vitreous collagen upon pulsed-laser irradiation at low fluences. In this work, the potential of positively and negatively charged carbon quantum dots (CQDs) to interfere with the aggregation of type I collagen is investigated. We demonstrate that fibrillation of collagen I is prevented most strongly by positively charged CQDs (CQDs-2) and that pulsed-laser illumination allowed to destroy type I collagen aggregates and vitreous opacities (as obtained from patients after vitrectomy) treated with CQDs-2.
About The Expert
Alexandre Barras
Félix Sauvage
Inès de Hoon
Kevin Braeckmans
Dawei Hua
Gaëtan Buvat
Juan C Fraire
Christophe Lethien
J Sebag
Michael Harrington
Amar Abderrahmani
Rabah Boukherroub
Stefaan De Smedt
Sabine Szunerits
References
PubMed