A Bifunctional Metal–Organic Framework Based on Linear Trinuclear Clusters for Solvent-Free Aldehyde Cyanosilylation and Growth Inhibition of Human Breast Cancer Cells

Abstract

By using a rigid Y-shaped biphenyl-3,4′,5-tricarboxylic acid (H3bpt) organic ligand, a new cluster-based metal-organic framework (MOF) with the chemical formula of {[Cu3(bpt)2(H2O)4](DMA)(MeOH)2}n (1, DMA = N,N-dimethylacetamide) was synthesized under solvothermal condition. The structure of 1 was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses (SCXRD) and further characterized by elemental analyses, IR spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), thermogravimetric (TG) analyses and gas sorption measurements. The SCXRD result reveals that complex 1 exhibits a 3D framework with 1D channels which contains opposite-handedness helical chains based on the trinuclear Cu(II) clusters. Considering its high pore volume and accessible open metal sites, complex 1 as well as its activated form (1a) was studied for cyanosilylation of aldehydes under solvent-free conditions, which reveals that 1a shows much better catalytic performance than that of 1, indicating the open metal sites play important roles in the catalytic process. Furthermore, the anticancer activates of complex 1 and 1a has been evaluated on three human breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468 and Hst578) via the MTT assay.