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Friction 2023, 11(12): 2204-2220 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0714-6
Research Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 31 March 2023

Fluorinated graphene quantum dots with long-term lubrication for visual drug loading and joint inflammation therapy

Show Author's Information Peiwei GONG1,2,†( ),  Changmin QI1,†,  Dandan WANG1,  Mianran CHAO1,  Jianxi LIU2( ),  Meirong CAI3,  Weimin LIU2,3
Key Laboratory of Catalytic Conversion and Clean Energy in Universities of Shandong Province, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Qufu Normal University, Jining 273165, China
State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.

† Peiwei GONG and Changmin QI contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
lubrication, fluorescence, drug delivery, structure design, fluorinated graphene (FG)
Cite this article:
GONG P, QI C, WANG D, et al. Fluorinated graphene quantum dots with long-term lubrication for visual drug loading and joint inflammation therapy. Friction, 2023, 11(12): 2204-2220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0714-6
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Osteoarthritis (OA) treatment mainly relies on developing new drugs or nanocarriers, while little attention is paid to building novel remedial mode and improving drug loading efficiency. This work reports an integrated nanosystem that not only realizes visual drug loading and release, but also achieves enhanced lubrication and effective joint inflammation therapy based on fluorinated graphene quantum dots (FGQDs). Oxygen introduction promotes FGQDs outstanding water-stability for months, and layered nano-sized structure further guarantees excellent lubricating properties in biomimetic synovial fluid. The special design of chemistry and structure endows FGQDs robust fluorescence in a wide range of pH conditions. Also, the excitation spectrum of FGQDs well overlaps the absorption spectrum of drugs, which further constructs a new concept of internal filtering system to visually monitor drug loading by naked eyes. More importantly, extraordinary long-term lubrication performance is reported, which is the first experimental demonstration of concentration-dependent mutations of coefficient of friction (COF). Cell incubation experiments indicate that drug-loaded FGQDs have good biocompatibility, tracking property of cellular uptake and drug release, which show efficient anti-inflammation potential for H2O2-induced chondrocyte degradation by up-regulated cartilage anabolic genes. This study establishes a promising OA treatment strategy that enables to monitor drug loading and release, to enhance long-time lubricating property, and to show effective anti-inflammatory potential for cartilage protection.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Fluorinated graphene quantum dots with long-term lubrication for visual drug loading and joint inflammation therapy

Show Author's information Peiwei GONG1,2,†( ), Changmin QI1,†, Dandan WANG1, Mianran CHAO1, Jianxi LIU2( ), Meirong CAI3, Weimin LIU2,3
Key Laboratory of Catalytic Conversion and Clean Energy in Universities of Shandong Province, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Qufu Normal University, Jining 273165, China
State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.

† Peiwei GONG and Changmin QI contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) treatment mainly relies on developing new drugs or nanocarriers, while little attention is paid to building novel remedial mode and improving drug loading efficiency. This work reports an integrated nanosystem that not only realizes visual drug loading and release, but also achieves enhanced lubrication and effective joint inflammation therapy based on fluorinated graphene quantum dots (FGQDs). Oxygen introduction promotes FGQDs outstanding water-stability for months, and layered nano-sized structure further guarantees excellent lubricating properties in biomimetic synovial fluid. The special design of chemistry and structure endows FGQDs robust fluorescence in a wide range of pH conditions. Also, the excitation spectrum of FGQDs well overlaps the absorption spectrum of drugs, which further constructs a new concept of internal filtering system to visually monitor drug loading by naked eyes. More importantly, extraordinary long-term lubrication performance is reported, which is the first experimental demonstration of concentration-dependent mutations of coefficient of friction (COF). Cell incubation experiments indicate that drug-loaded FGQDs have good biocompatibility, tracking property of cellular uptake and drug release, which show efficient anti-inflammation potential for H2O2-induced chondrocyte degradation by up-regulated cartilage anabolic genes. This study establishes a promising OA treatment strategy that enables to monitor drug loading and release, to enhance long-time lubricating property, and to show effective anti-inflammatory potential for cartilage protection.

Keywords: lubrication, fluorescence, drug delivery, structure design, fluorinated graphene (FG)

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Publication history

Received: 06 May 2022
Revised: 11 October 2022
Accepted: 26 October 2022
Published: 31 March 2023
Issue date: December 2023

Copyright

© The author(s) 2022.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51905304, 52275202, and 21972153), China Post-doctoral Science Foundation (2022M712582), and Shandong Natural Science Foundation (ZR2022QE037).

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