Integrated Microfluidic Synthesis of Aptamer Functionalized Biozeolitic Imidazolate Framework (BioZIF-8) Targeting...

Targeted delivery of therapeutic molecules using nanomaterials is desired to elicit specific responses toward diseases. Such an integrated synthesis of functional material using a microfluidic approach is a great challenge. Functional metal organic frameworks (MOFs) with unique structural diversity possess a complicated synthesis procedure thereby requiring a modest, straightforward approach to synthesize size-controllable MOFs. Here, we develop an integrated microfluidic chip to synthesize the aptamer-modified biozeolitic imidazolate framework (BioZIF-8) to target the lymph node and tumor. The first stage of the microfluidic chip forms the ZIF-8 encapsulating biomolecules (bovine serum albumin, small interfering ribonucleic acid, and doxorubicin). The second stage modifies the surface of BioZIF-8 with the aptamer. Our approach reduces the overall synthesis time (∼3 mg/10 min against 15 h for the conventional two-step method) and encapsulates a higher number of biomolecules. The microfluidic approach realizes the rapid and fine-tuned synthesis of functional MOFs integrated into one-step.