Chirality-Governed Anti-Aging Effects of Carbon Dots in Caenorhabditis Elegans

Anti-aging is crucial for facilitating immune modulation and promoting enhanced health management and quality of life among the elderly. This primarily focuses on enhancing the antioxidant defense system to repair damage related to aging. Here, we demonstrate the chirality-governed anti-aging effects of carbon dots (CDs) in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). Chiral CDs, namely, D-/L-CDs, with high antioxidant capacity are designed using machine learning, and the optimized versions exhibit broad-spectrum antioxidant activity in vitro. These chiral CDs can effectively protect cells from H₂O₂-induced damage. We further demonstrate the strong chirality-governed effects of chiral CDs on the antioxidant and lifespan prolongation of C. elegans in vivo. Notably, D-CDs can effectively extend the lifespan of C. elegans at 1.0 mg/mL with an average elongation of 14.66%, while L-CDs have no significant effect on the lifespan of C. elegans in the same condition. Comprehensive studies have shown that D-CDs can significantly increase the activity of related antioxidant enzymes in C. elegans, effectively inhibit the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and lipofuscin content, playing an excellent antioxidant role. Besides, D-CDs could upregulated the gene expression levels of longevity regulating pathway.