Metal–Organic Framework Nanocarriers for Drug Delivery in Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Investigation of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for biomedical applications has attracted much attention in recent years. MOFs are regarded as a promising class of nanocarriers for drug delivery owing to well-defined structure, ultrahigh surface area and porosity, tunable pore size, and easy chemical functionalization. In this review, the unique properties of MOFs and their advantages as nanocarriers for drug delivery in biomedical applications were discussed in the first section. Then, state-of-the-art strategies to functionalize MOFs with therapeutic agents were summarized, including surface adsorption, pore encapsulation, covalent binding, and functional molecules as building blocks. In the third section, the most recent biological applications of MOFs for intracellular delivery of drugs, proteins, and nucleic acids, especially aptamers, were presented. Finally, challenges and prospects were comprehensively discussed to provide context for future development of MOFs as efficient drug delivery systems.

A New Fluorescence MOF for Highly Sensitive Detection of Acetylacetone

“…Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs), known as a class of highly crystalline hybrid materials, have received growing attentions over the last several decades owing to their interesting architectures [1] and promising applications in gas capture, [2] gas separation, [3] drug delivery, [4] luminescence, [5] iodine uptake, [6] catalysis, [7] and bioimaging, [8] etc.. Among the application topics, the superiorities of luminescent MOFs, such as structural turnability, porosity, easily induced luminescence and varied detecting mechanisms, have aroused enthusiastic investigations in the field of chemical sensing [9] .…”

MOFs-Based Nitric Oxide Therapy for Tendon Regeneration

“…Fortunately, the metal-organic framework (MOF) has been widely applied in the field of gas storage because of its high porosity, large specific surface area, and especially, the abundant active sites which can combine with a lot of gas molecules stably [16][17][18]. Moreover, MOFs are biodegradable in protein-containing solutions, and the metal ions in MOFs can be released and exhibited unique biological activity in the body [19].…”

Sustained-Release Nanocapsules Enable Long-Lasting Stabilization of Li Anode for Practical Li-Metal Batteries

“…Inspired by drug delivery systems for disease treatment [26,27], we demonstrate sustained-release nanocapsules made from nanoparticles of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to continuously stabilize LMA with LiNO 3 additive in carbonate-based electrolyte. While MOFs have been used to immobilize ionic species as electrolytes for battery applications [28][29][30][31], there is no attempt to manipulate the SEI-forming components in commercial electrolytes with the assistance of MOFs.…”