Nanoscale metallic‐organic frameworks as an advanced tool for medical applications: Challenges and recent progress

Abstract

Recently, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have received a lot of interest for application in many fields ranging from catalysis, energy storage, and gas sensing to chemosensory and biomedicine owed to their flexible composition, tunable porosity, and easy functionalization ability. In particular, nanoscale MOFs have been broadly investigated as carriers for the delivery of therapeutics to cancerous organs owed to their high encapsulating capacity and controlled cargo release, versatility, biodegradability, and good biocompatibility.Several methods such as solvothermal, mechanochemical, electrochemical, microwave, and ultrasound have been utilized to fabricate MOFs via custommade synthesis. Many efforts have been made to functionalize MOFs through "post-synthetic modification," by adjusting the nature, size, and charge of the linkers or tuning its main components. Herein, a comprehensive literature review on recent papers dealing with drug-loaded MOFs for the detection and treatment of cancer as well as bacterial, fungal, and viral infections is presented. Different types of MOFs applied as carriers in drug delivery systems and biosensing platforms are described. Furthermore, perspectives and challenges for future research in the field, particularly for cancer therapy, are discussed. Thus, very limited literature is available on in vitro and in vivo toxicity of nanoscale MOFs. Besides, their biological stability and long-term safety are crucial factors that should be further investigated. Based on the reviewed papers, zeolite imidazolate framework (ZIF) and Materials of Institute Lavoisier (MIL) families have been the main focus for drug delivery and diagnosis applications, respectively, while many types of MOFs have exhibited antibacterial and antifungal properties regardless of their cargo.

Advances and Applications of Metal‐Organic Frameworks (MOFs) in Emerging Technologies: A Comprehensive Review

“…For future research, breakthroughs need to be continuously made to promote the widespread application of MOFs in the medical field. [174] MOFs have been widely applied in biomedical applications, specifically in drug loading and drug delivery systems, particularly for antiviral and anticancer compounds. However, solubility and long-term stability in aqueous, alkaline, and acidic media and toxicity of the selected metal salts and organic linkers for the preparation of MOFs as well as the issues associated with biocompatibility and biodegradability are major concerns for the applications of drug delivery.…”

“…For future research, breakthroughs need to be continuously made to promote the widespread application of MOFs in the medical field. [ 174 ]…”

Fe-Based Metal Organic Frameworks (Fe-MOFs) for Bio-Related Applications

“…For example, Tela et al combined MIL-53 and Ag Nps to evaluate the antifungal activity of the material against Aspergillus flavus. The experimental results showed that the growth inhibition was up to 64% [ 118 ]. Furthermore, Fe-MOFs can be used to combat parasites, such as Leishmania parasites and Toxoplasma gondii.…”

Enhanced Visible-Light-Responsive Photocatalytic Degradation of Ciprofloxacin by the CuxO/Metal-Organic Framework Hybrid Nanocomposite

“…Metal-organic framework (MOF) nanomaterials, such as MOF-PNIPAM membranes [ 8 ], ZIF-8 MOF [ 9 ], PCL/MOF-545 [ 10 ], HKUST-1 [ 11 ], and ZIF-8 [ 12 ], are widely used for drug delivery, diagnosis [ 13 , 14 ], as adsorbents [ 15 ], and for photocatalysis, for the removal of sulfonamide, CIP, and tetracycline antibiotics, respectively, from an aqueous solution through the adsorption technique. In addition, MOFs have attracted significant attention in photocatalysis technology, due to their semiconductor-like behavior, which transfers photogenerated charges to the reactive sites of a ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT) for the in-situ decomposition of organic compounds, to form CO 2 and water [ 16 ].…”