Multimodal Regulatory Mechanisms of Functionalized Carbon Dots in Promoting Bone Regeneration: Research Progress and Clinical Translation Strategies

The treatment of bone defects in clinical practice still faces great challenges. Traditional repair materials ( such as autologous bone, metal materials, etc. ) have problems such as insufficient osteogenic activity, immune rejection, and infection risk, and it is difficult to achieve complete bone tissue regeneration. As a new class of zero-dimensional carbon-based nanomaterials, carbon dots ( CDs ) have shown unique advantages and broad application prospects in the field of bone tissue repair due to their good biocompatibility, stable fluorescence imaging performance and rich surface functional modification methods.In recent years, the in-depth study of carbon dots functionalization strategy has enabled it to achieve multi-modal and precise synergistic regulation in the regulation of energy metabolism, signal transduction, immune microenvironment and structural support of bone repair, which has significantly improved the efficiency and quality of new bone formation. However, carbon dots still face many challenges in the process of clinical transformation, such as difficulties in large-scale production, unclear long-term safety, lack of unified standards for functional evaluation system, and unclear selection of indications. This paper systematically summarizes the functional construction strategy of carbon dots and the molecular mechanism and research progress of multimodal regulation in bone repair, and further analyzes the key problems and coping strategies faced by their clinical transformation, in order to provide theoretical basis and research direction for the clinical application and commercial promotion of functional carbon dots in the field of bone tissue engineering.