Alistair C. McKinlay

BioMOFs: Metal–Organic Frameworks for Biological and Medical Applications

The class of highly porous materials called metal-organic frameworks offer many opportunities for applications across biology and medicine. Their wide range of chemical composition makes toxicologically acceptable formulation possible, and their high level of functionality enables possible applications as imaging agents and as delivery vehicles for therapeutic agents. The challenges in the area encompass not only the development of new solids but also improvements in the formulation and processing of the materials, including tailoring the morphology and surface chemistry of the frameworks to fit the proposed applications.

Exceptional Behavior over the Whole Adsorption−Storage−Delivery Cycle for NO in Porous Metal Organic Frameworks

Two porous metal organic frameworks (MOFs), [M2(C8H2O6)(H2O)2] x 8 H2O (M = Co, Ni), perform exceptionally well for the adsorption, storage, and water-triggered delivery of the biologically important gas nitric oxide. Adsorption and powder X-ray diffraction studies indicate that each coordinatively unsaturated metal atom in the structure coordinates to one NO molecule. All of the stored gas is available for delivery even after the material has been stored for several months. The combination of extremely high adsorption capacity (approximately 7 mmol of NO/g of MOF) and good storage stability is ideal for the preparation of NO storage solids. However, most important is that the entire reservoir of stored gas is recoverable on contact with a simple trigger (moisture). The activity of the NO storage materials is proved in myography experiments showing that the NO-releasing MOFs cause relaxation of porcine arterial tissue.

Multirate delivery of multiple therapeutic agents from metal-organic frameworks

The highly porous nature of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offers great potential for the delivery of therapeutic agents. Here, we show that highly porous metal-organic frameworks can be used to deliver multiple therapeutic agents—a biologically active gas, an antibiotic drug molecule, and an active metal ion—simultaneously but at different rates. The possibilities offered by delivery of multiple agents with different mechanisms of action and, in particular, variable timescales may allow new therapy approaches. Here, we show that the loaded MOFs are highly active against various strains of bacteria.

Porous, rigid metal(III)-carboxylate metal-organic frameworks for the delivery of nitric oxide

The room temperature sorption properties of the biological gas nitric oxide (NO) have been investigated on the highly porous and rigid iron or chromium carboxylate based metal-organic frameworks Material Institut Lavoisier (MIL)-100(Fe or Cr) and MIL-127(Fe). In all cases, a significant amount of NO is chemisorbed at 298 K with a loading capacity that depends both on the nature of the metal cation, the structure and the presence of additional iron(II) Lewis acid sites. In a second step, the release of NO triggered by wet nitrogen gas has been studied by chemiluminescence and indicates that only a partial release of NO occurs as well as a prolonged delivery at the biological level. Finally, an in situ infrared spectroscopy study confirms not only the coordination of NO over the Lewis acid sites and the stronger binding of NO on the additional iron(II) sites, providing further insights over the partial release of NO only in the presence of water at room temperature.

A comparison of zeolites and Metal Organic Frameworks as storage and delivery vehicles for biologically active nitric oxide

Zeolites and metal organic frameworks have been shown to be capable of storage and delivery of nitric oxide. Both the adsorption capacities and rate of delivery have been discovered to be dependent on the framework topology and composition for both classes of materials. In addition, the amount of nitric oxide which zeolites can store/deliver is especially easy to alter by applying slight changes in the materials composition. Finally, at the present time zeolites are more acceptable on toxicological grounds than metal organic frameworks.