DNA Functionalization And Biological Applications Of Metal-organic Frameworks(MOFs)

The surface functionality of metal organic frameworks(MOFs)plays an important role in the process of material application.This paper presented a simple and effective strategy for DNA-mediated surface modification of zirconium-based nanoscale MOFs(NMOFs),which can extend the application potential of the material in the field of nanotechnology and biotechnology by giving the material a specific biomolecular recognition function.PCN-224 NMOFs is a kind of Zr6 MOFs that is assembled by coordination with Zr6 clusters as metal nodes and porphyrins 'as organic ligands.It has good chemical stability,biocompatibility,and optical properties,so we chose it to achieve the DNA surface modification of MOFs.It is shown that the functional DNA can be effectively immobilized on the surface of NMOFs through the surface coordination chemistry of NMOFs and form the DNA-NMOFs Model.We quantitatively calculated 1 mg of NMOFs linked to 9.7 nmol DNA(A30).Further,we selected aptamer AS1411 with a targeted recognition function and an immunomodulatory oligonucleotide sequence CpG to perform biological application of DNA-functionalized MOFs(Apt-NMOFs and CpG-NMOFs,respectively).The results showed that Apt-NMOFs had significantly higher cellular uptake compared to NMOFs,indicating that this functionalization did not affect the aptamer's target recognition capability;The CpG-NMOFs transformed the CpG into a "spherical nucleic acid".this composite exhibited a stronger immunostimulatory effect than the naked CpG in vitro and in vivo,and there was no significant systemic toxicity in vivo.Overall,these experimental results show that this strategy can be used to modify different functional DNAs onto the surface of MOFs to achieve the surface functionalization of MOFs,extending the use of this material to various applications such as biosensing,bioimaging,and nanomedicine.