Theranostics of metal-organic frameworks: image-guided nanomedicine for clinical translation

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)-based theranostic nanomedicine has demonstrated enormous potential for cancer diagnosis and therapy due to its versatile physiochemical properties, such as structural and morphological properties, specific cellular targeting, tunable pore and particle size, higher surface area, drug-loading capacity, biodegradability and biocompatibility. Notably, MOFs, loaded with diagnostic and therapeutic agents and functionalized with targeting moiety, are capable of catering to both targeted imaging and therapy simultaneously. Additionally, MOFs have demonstrated excellent potential in drug delivery, drug targeting, bioimaging, biosensing, biocatalysis and so on. However, major challenges associated with MOFs include improving their stability, biocompatibility and therapeutic efficacy and reducing the toxicity. This special report sheds light on the historical development, synthesis, recent advancements, toxicity and challenges associated with MOFs-based cancer nanotheranostics for their clinical translation.