Abstract
The progressive development of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs), as a subfamily of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and their unique features, including tunable pore size, large surface area, high thermal stability, and biodegradability/biocompatibility, have made them attractive in the field of biomedicine, especially for drug delivery and biomineralization applications. The high porosity of ZIFs gives them the opportunity for encapsulating a high amount of therapeutic drugs, proteins, imaging cargos, or a combination of them to construct advanced multifunctional drug delivery systems (DDSs) with combined therapeutic and imaging capabilities. This review summarizes recent strategies on the design and fabrication of ZIF-based nansystems and their exploration in the biomedical field. First, recent developments for the adjustment of particle size, functionality, and morphology of ZIFs are discussed, which are important for achieving optimized therapeutic/theranostic nanosystems. Second, recent trends on the application of ZIF nanocarriers for the loading of diverse cargos, including anticancer medicines, antibiotic drugs, enzymes, proteins, photosensitizers, as well as imaging and photothermal agents, are investigated in order to understand how multifunctional DDSs can be designed based on the ZIF nanoparticles to treat different diseases, such as cancer and infection. Finally, prospects on the future research direction and applications of ZIF-based nanomedicines are discussed.
Highlights
The scientific community has witnessed the considerable achievements of ZIFs for versatile biomedical applications, especially in the stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems (DDSs) and biomineralization of elegant bio-macromolecules due to their unique features, including tunable pore size, large surface area, high thermal stability, and favorable biodegradability/biocompatibility
The study of biomedical applications of ZIFs is in its infancy phase, it has opened promising and intriguing prospects based on their high performance in many applications, which was discussed in this review paper (Tables 1 and 2)
The intrinsic characteristics of ZIFs endow them with superior capability in the loading of different cargos in a single particle to exploit them as multifunctional carriers
Summary
Linker modifications or encapsulation of guest species (e.g., nanoparticles (NPs)) within ZIFs have been com-. In order to control the morphology of ZIF NPs, two strategies, i.e., nontemplated and template-mediated methods, have been developed.[11] In the nontemplated methods, different parameters, such as solvent, metal ion to 2-MeIm ratio, and reaction time have been determinant parameters in the morphology of ZIF NPs.[77,78,79,80,81] For example, ordered hierarchical ZIFs with nest-like morphology were prepared using a mixed solvent of methanol (CH3OH) and aqueous ammonia (NH3·H2O).[77] The architectures with diameters of ≈2–3 μm were formed by self-assembly of numerous nanoplates with a thickness of ≈20– 40 nm Such structures were not produced in the presence of a single solvent. Www.advhealthmat.de ity, cost-effective preparation and environmental considerations of the synthesis methods must receive more attention in future studies
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
