Size-Control and surface modification of flexible metal-organic framework MIL-53(Fe) by Polyethyleneglycol for 5- Fluorouracil anticancer drug delivery

Abstract

The flexible metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) materials, also called soft porous crystals which combine the crystalline order of the underlying coordination network with cooperative structural transformability, have been extensively studied as promising materials for various applications such as sensing, drug delivery, catalysis, host-guest complex etc. Among them MOFs is effectively used as a carrier for drug delivery. Herein, a flexible metal-organic framework MIL-53(Fe) functionalized with polyethyleneglycol (PEG) was successfully fabricated by ultrasonication. The prepared material was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmittance electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and infrared spectroscopy (IR). The effect of the PEG content on the morphology and particles size of the MIL-53 was investigated in detail. The resultant flexible MIL-53(Fe)-PEG materials were seen to be homogeneous with the morphology of hexagonal bipyramidal structure, approximately 700 nm in length and 400 nm in diameter. Furthermore, we investigated loading of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) drug and its release in vitro conditions by employing MIL-53(Fe)-PEG. The results showed that in vitro condition, only 31 percent of the drug released after 3 h, and released completely after approximately 6 days. Thus, we believe that use of MIL-53(Fe)-PEG may overcome current issue of sustain release.