Integrated Microfluidic Synthesis of Aptamer Functionalized Biozeolitic Imidazolate Framework (BioZIF-8) Targeting Lymph Node and Tumor
Yekkuni L. Balachandran, Xuanyu Li, Xingyu Jiang
Abstract
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.