Synthesis of Carbon Dots (C-Dots) From Active Extracts of Mangrove Fruit (Sonneratia alba) and Their Effectiveness as a Cytotoxic Agent Against Lung Cancer Cells

Abstract

Cancer is still a chronic disease in Indonesia, based on Globocan the number of new cancer cases reached 396,914 total cancers in Indonesia, with lung cancer reaching 30,843 people (13.2%). One of the potential materials to be developed as an anticancer agent is the C-Dots compound from mangrove fruit extract, this study aims to extract, synthesize, and assess the effectiveness of C-Dots in inhibiting A-549 cancer cells, the stages in this study are the extraction of active substances from mangrove fruit, synthesis of C-Dots with the agitation method, there are three variations of C-Dots samples, including C-Dots A (50 grams of powder + 50 mL of extract), C-Dots B (50 grams of powder + 50 mL of distilled water), and C-Dots C (25 grams of powder + 50 mL of extract), the three samples were characterized through fluorescence tests, UV-Vis, FTIR, PSA, and A-549 cytotoxic tests with MTT-Assay, the characterization results showed the formation of a green color under UV light, in the UV-Vis test the three samples showed two absorbance peaks of 280 nm and 380 nm, the results of the FTIR test of C-Dots A and C have the same functional groups, namely O-H, C-H, C=C, and C-O, while C-Dots B has a typical functional group C=O, PSA test shows the most dominant particle size of 75 nm with a percentage of C-Dots A 22.01%, B 15.2%, and C 16.93%. Based on the characterization results, it shows that C-Dots have been formed from mangrove fruit extract, then the results of MTT Assay, C-Dots A, B, and C produce IC₅₀ values ​​of 335.80 µg/mL, 365.70 µg/mL, and 154.50 µg/mL, respectively, then C-Dots C with an IC₅₀ value of 154.50 µg/mL is the most effective variation because the IC50 value is the smallest and is included in the toxic category.