Abstract
The synthesis of Metal-organic Frameworks (MOFs) and their evaluation for various applications is one of the largest research areas within materials sciences and chemistry. Here, the use of MOFs in biomaterials and implants is summarized as narrative review addressing primarely the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (TERM) community. Focus is given on MOFs as bioactive component to aid tissue engineering and to augment clinically established or future therapies in regenerative medicine. A summary of synthesis methods suitable for TERM laboratories and key properties of MOFs relevant to biomaterials is provided. The use of MOFs is categorized according to their targeted organ (bone, cardio-vascular, skin and nervous tissue) and whether the MOFs are used as intrinsically bioactive material or as drug delivery vehicle. Further distinction between in vitro and in vivo studies provides a clear assessment of literature on the current progress of MOF based biomaterials. Although the present review is narrative in nature, systematic literature analysis has been performed, allowing a concise overview of this emerging research direction till the point of writing. While a number of excellent studies have been published, future studies will need to clearly highlight the safety and added value of MOFs compared to established materials for clinical TERM applications. The scope of the present review is clearly delimited from the general ‘biomedical application’ of MOFs that focuses mainly on drug delivery or diagnostic applications not involving aspects of tissue healing or better implant integration.
Highlights
Metal-organic Frameworks (MOFs) are new synthetic materials that emerged over the past three decades (Yaghi and Li, 1995; Yaghi et al, 1995)
In addition to the drug loading capacity, the present review aims to highlight that MOFs may have intrinsic bioactivity through delivering specific metal ions (Su et al, 2019), ligands (Rojas et al, 2017) or through catalytically generating messenger molecules such as nitric oxide in copperbased MOFs (Harding and Reynolds, 2012)
Most reports on use of MOFs in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (TERM) applications focus on the improvement of structural bone implants
Summary
MOFs are new synthetic materials that emerged over the past three decades (Yaghi and Li, 1995; Yaghi et al, 1995). The pore size and aperture is significantly smaller compared to polymeric structures (Pan et al, 2013) and can be accurately controlled (Eddaoudi et al, 2002; Banerjee et al, 2009) This accurate control makes MOFs predestined for drug loading and sustained or triggered release from nano-particulate. Most studies investigating MOFs for TERM application focused on orthopedic applications, followed by cardiovascular treatment, cutaneous wound healing, and applications in nervous tissue (Figure 1). Beyond these targeted organs, a specialized MOF was proposed for treatment of periodontitis (Li et al, 2019), while materials for other organs seem not yet to have been evaluated. The use of MOFs for TERM applications is an emerging field of research with only very few works published before the year 2018
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