Adenine-based biological metal-organic frameworks: Coordination chemistry and supramolecular recognition

Abstract

Biological metal-organic frameworks (BioMOFs) are a new class of crystalline porous materials developed in last decade. The biomolecules introduced as the component of BioMOFs endow biological compatibility for this type of materials, offering new opportunities of applications in the biology and medicine. In this paper, we briefly review some aspects concerning the coordination chemistry, structures and functions of BioMOFs constructed from metal and adenine, with emphasis on those equiped with the open Watson-Crick sites. Following the background introduction, the main content is divided into three sections. Section 1 summarizes examples of BioMOFs with adenine ligand, which are categorized into two parts: (1) adenine-based MOFs constructed in the presence of auxilary ligands such as ditopic and tritopic carboxylate ligands; (2) metal-adenine-based supramolecular networks constructed through noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding. The focuses are paid to the structural features of BioMOFs with the open Watson-Crick sites and their stability and potential applications. Section 2 emphasizes on our recent progress on studying a BioMOF with the the open Watson-Crick sites, i.e. ZnBTCA, which exhibit interesting supramolecular recognition effects and nucleobase pairing. The most intriguing result is the glabal adaptive response of the host framework toward the A-T base pairing. In the last section (Section 3), the potential host-guest chemistry and perspective in biomimicry and bioapplications of this emerging type of materials are outlined, and the possible challenges in advancing these research topics are also pointed out.