Metal-organic-framework-involved nanobiocatalysis for biomedical applications

Abstract

Substantial efforts have been devoted to closing the gap between the fragility of biocatalysts and their practical applications. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with operational stability, high loading capacity, and precisely tailored structure have been extensively studied in nanobiocatalysis to interact with biocatalysts, further tuning the catalytic efficiency and biological functions of biocatalysts. Furthermore, atomic-level catalytic centers and customizable coordination microenvironments allow MOFs to be the alternatives for biocatalysts, further realizing biomimetic catalysis and expanding the application scenarios. Herein, this review focuses on several intelligent strategies for MOFs as carriers to modulate the activity of biocatalysts, as well as the fine design and regulation of MOFs as biomimetic catalysts to improve enzyme-mimetic catalytic activity and selectivity. Various potential biomedical applications, including cancer therapies, anti-bacteria, antioxidant treatment, and biosensing will be briefly depicted. Finally, the challenging issues and opportunities for the future exploration of MOF-involved biocatalysts will be discussed. Enzymes, as nature-engineered biocatalysts, give access to a broad range of biological reactions. However, significant obstacles in structural fragility and environmental tolerance have been the mainstream topics in enzymatic catalysis. Nanobiocatalysis offer the potential to interact nanomaterial characteristics with enzymes’ biological function to tackle these challenges. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), featuring tailorable structure, high loading capacity, and stability, show promise in stabilizing enzymes and further tuning the catalytic efficiency of enzymes. Also, atomic-level catalytic sites and well-defined structures render MOFs the efficient enzyme mimics for realizing biocatalytic functions. This review summarizes the fine design of MOF supported and MOF mimetic biocatalysts for the regulation of catalytic efficiency and selectivity, as well as the internal mechanism of MOF-modulated enzyme activity. The potential MOF-involved biomedical applications are also depicted. MOFs with high loading efficiency, operational stability, and precisely tailored structure have been extensively studied in nanobiocatalysis for enzyme immobilization and enzyme mimicking. Several intelligent strategies employing MOFs as carriers have been proposed to circumvent the fragility of enzymes and enhance their activity. Also, MOF-based bionic catalysts are further optimized from the underlying relationship between enzyme-like activity and catalytic sites, linkers, and active guests. The potential applications of these MOF-involved biocatalysts are also briefly depicted.