A surface architectured metal-organic framework for targeting delivery: Suppresses cancer growth and metastasis

Porous nanosized metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are becoming possible candidates as drug-delivery nanocarriers for their versatile porous structures and large loadings of drugs. However, controlling synthesis of MOFs with uniform morphology, good biocompatibility and targeting drug delivery is still a challenge, which greatly limits their clinical applications. Herein, a multifunctional nano-sized drug-delivery material MIL-101(Fe)@FU@FA with a uniform particle size about 500 nm was successfully synthesized for targeting therapeutic purposes. The targeting reagent folic acid (FA) molecules are connected on the surface of 5-FU-loaded nanoparticle MIL-101(Fe)-NH2 by a covalent conjugation. Cytotoxicity tests showed that the synthesized nanoparticles are biocompatible and can significantly inhibit cell proliferation on SMMC-7721 cells compared with MIL-101 (Fe)@FU and free 5-FU. The cell metastasis and invasion experiments proved that the nanoparticles had a good anti-metastasis ability to tumor cells. Mechanistically, MIL-101(Fe)@FU@FA induces apoptosis of SMMC-7721 cells and block cell cycle progression in the G2/M phase. Taken together, the drug-loaded nanoparticles MIL-101(Fe)@FU@FA have the effect of targeting and sustained release to achieve the therapeutic effect. (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).