Development of UiO-66 and ZIF-8 MOF Nanocarriers for Anticancer Drug Delivery in Breast Cancer Cells

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), characterized by their extensive surface area, biocompatibility, and pH-sensitive degradation have emerged as promising candidates for drug delivery systems (DDSs). This study focused on the development of zinc based zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF8) and zirconium-based framework (UiO-66) MOFs as effective nanocarriers for delivery of broad-spectrum chemotherapeutic drug, doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX), aiming to mitigate adverse side effects in breast cancer treatment. The nanocarriers, ZIF-8 and UiO-66 achieved a maximum drug loading efficiency of about between 79% and 75% at a drug-to-particle ratio of 1:10, and exhibited their pH-responsive release, which is essential for cancer therapy. The in vitro therapeutic efficacy of developed DDSs was explored on breast cancer (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) cell lines as well lung normal cells (WI26VA4). From confocal microscopic studies, it has been observed that a substantial amount of DOX is internalized into the cancer cells in a time-dependent manner. It is noteworthy to mention that both the developed drug formulations (DOX@UiO-66 and DOX@ZIF-8) showed dose-dependent toxicity towards cancer cell lines. Moreover, the cell viability studies performed with pure ZIF-8 and UiO-66 MOFs against normal as well as cancer cells demonstrated their biocompatibility nature even at a high concentration of 50 µg/mL. These findings underscore the potential of ZIF-8 and UiO-66 MOFs as effective and biocompatible platforms for drug delivery in breast cancer therapy.