Synthesis and evaluation of pH-responsive mesoporous ZnO/PEG/DOX nanocomposite based on Zn-HKUST-1 MOF nanostructure for targeted drug delivery

A novel approach to design and synthesis a pH-responsive nanocarrier for targeted drug delivery (TDD) is developed. The synthesized Zn-HKUST-1 metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) was calcined at 500 °C as an optimum temperature to synthesize highly pure and hexagonal crystalline mesoporous ZnO nanoparticles (m-ZnO NPs) having high surface area of ZnO (137 m 2 /g) larger than many reported porous ZnO nanostructures, characterized by PXRD, FT-IR, UV–Vis, FE-SEM and, BET methods. The rice-seed-like m-ZnO NPs were decorated by polyethylene glycol (PEG) and loaded with doxorubicin (DOX). The nanocomposite thus obtained was evaluated for doxorubicin TDD in a simulated tumor microenvironment (TMU), which showed the release of ~ 48% of DOX at a pH of 5.4 after 72 h. The effect of biocompatible nanocomposite on breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7) was evaluated which showed that the use of DOX loaded m-ZnO decorated PEG nanocomposite has a good drug performance. Mesoporous ZnO nanoparticle with mean diameter of 30 nm and very high surface area of 137 m 2 /g is synthesized and loaded by PEG and DOX for efficient drug delivery.