Fig. 2

The uptake and biodistribution of CQDs in the brain of mice. (a) Representative fluorescence pictures of different regions of brain tissue in mice as well as pictures of CQDs under sunlight and UV light; (b) Quantitative results of radiant efficiency of CQDs; (c) Representative TEM images of OB, HIP and CS of the brain tissues showed the accumulation of CQDs in neuronal cells. The red arrows indicate accumulated CQDs in lysosome with membrane rupture, the yellow arrows indicate destroyed mitochondrion inside an autophagic vacuole (also known as autolysosome), the blue arrows indicate swollen endoplasmic reticulum. Olfactory bulb (OB), Cortex (COR), Hippocampus (HIP), Corpus Striatum (CS), Midbrain (MB) and Cerebellum (CE). Data are showed as mean ± SD of three independent experiments. (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001)