Metal-Organic Frameworks for Targeted Cancer Drug Delivery: A Systematic Review of Stimuli-Responsive Platforms and Therapeutic Performance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51574/hayyan.v3i2.5289Keywords:
MOFs, targeted drug delivery, cancer therapy, controlled release, nanomedicineAbstract
Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have gained increasing attention as promising nanocarriers for targeted cancer drug delivery due to their high surface area, tunable porosity, adjustable chemical structure, and capacity for controlled drug release. Conventional chemotherapy often faces limitations such as systemic toxicity, poor tumor selectivity, low bioavailability, and damage to healthy tissues. Stimuli-responsive MOFs enable drug release in response to specific tumor microenvironment conditions, including acidic pH, redox imbalance, enzyme overexpression, hypoxia, or external triggers such as light and temperature. This systematic review synthesizes 30 selected studies, focusing on MOF types, therapeutic cargo, stimuli-responsive mechanisms, cancer models, and reported therapeutic outcomes. Findings show that ZIF-8, UiO-66, MIL-series, and related MOF platforms are widely investigated, with doxorubicin and other anticancer drugs frequently used. pH-responsive and redox-responsive systems dominate, while multifunctional MOFs combining chemotherapy with photothermal or photodynamic therapy show strong potential. Clinical translation remains limited due to unresolved concerns regarding long-term biosafety, biodegradation, pharmacokinetics, immune response, reproducibility, and scalability. Stimuli-responsive MOFs represent a promising direction for precision cancer therapy, but further in vivo validation and translational studies are required
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