Metal-organic frameworks for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease: Current status and perspectives

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major cause of dementia and exhibits a complex and diverse pathogenesis with limited clinical treatment options, especially for patients in advanced stages. Therefore, early prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of AD are of great importance. Due to their excellent functionality in biosensing, bioimaging, and drug delivery, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted extensive attention in recent years arising from their potential in AD diagnosis and therapy. They are a novel class of materials featuring highly controllable pore structures and surface chemistry with applications in a variety of areas such as adsorption, separation, catalysis, and drug delivery. This review provides an outline for the applications and potential toxicity of MOFs and detailed studies related to the diagnosis and treatment of AD utilizing MOFs. These works include diagnostic studies in which MOFs specifically detect beta-amyloid, phosphorylated tau proteins, and neurotransmitters, as well as therapeutic studies in which MOFs are combined with biologically active molecules such as enzymes or nucleic acid sequences to target brain tissue or diseased nerve cells. With this review, we aim to broaden the use of MOFs in the diagnosis and treatment of AD and provide new research directions for clinical interventions in AD.