Liposome-Coated Iron Fumarate Metal-Organic Framework Nanoparticles for Combination Therapy.

Bernhard Illes,Hanna Engelke,Stefan Wuttke

doi:10.3390/nano7110351

Abstract

One of the main problems for effective treatment of cancer is resistances, which often require combination therapy—for effective treatment. While there are already some potential drug carriers—e.g., liposomes, available for treatment—the effective loading and retention of the desired drug ratio can be challenging. To address this challenge, we propose a new type of drug carrier: liposome-coated metal-organic framework (MOF) nanoparticles. They combine the advantages of liposomes with an easy and efficient loading process. In this work, we present the successful synthesis of liposome-coated MOF nanoparticles via the fusion method. The resulting particles, once loaded, show no premature leakage and an efficient release. Their successful loading with both single and multiple drugs at the same time makes them an interesting candidate for use in combination therapy.

Highlights

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a uniquely valuable class of materials, in that their structure and composition can be controlled at the atomic level
We demonstrate that MOF nanoparticles can be simultaneously loaded with multiple drugs
In our study we focus on iron-based MOF nanoparticles, namely MIL-88A, which are composed of iron(III) and fumaric acid, both naturally occurring in the body [38]

Summary

Introduction

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a uniquely valuable class of materials, in that their structure and composition can be controlled at the atomic level. Each possible building unit contributes its own properties and features, which allows us to make MOFs that have very specific degrees of porosity (pore and window size), surface area, functionality and biocompatibility [5,6]. All these attributes make them highly interesting to develop nanostructured smart drug delivery systems capable of bypassing extra- and intracellular barriers [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. These reports have mainly focused on the delivery of single active agents (e.g., one drug), whereas their application to deliver “cocktails” of drugs is still largely unexplored [7,28]

Methods

Results

Conclusion