A bioinspired metal-organic approach to cross-linked functional 3D nanofibrous hydro- and aero-gels with effective mixture separation of nucleobases by molecular recognition

Metal-organic gels: recent advances in their classification, characterization, and application in the pharmaceutical field

Metal-organic gels (MOGs) are a type of functional soft substance with a three-dimensional (3D) network structure and solid-like rheological behavior, which are constructed by metal ions and bridging ligands formed under the driving force of coordination interactions or other non-covalent interactions. As the homologous substances of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and gels, they exhibit the potential advantages of high porosity, flexible structure, and adjustable mechanical properties, causing them to attract extensive research interest in the pharmaceutical field. For instance, MOGs are often used as excellent vehicles for intelligent drug delivery and programmable drug release to improve the clinical curative effect with reduced side effects. Also, MOGs are often applied as advanced biomedical materials for the repair and treatment of pathological tissue and sensitive detection of drugs or other molecules. However, despite the vigorous research on MOGs in recent years, there is no systematic summary of their applications in the pharmaceutical field to date. The present review systematically summarize the recent research progress on MOGs in the pharmaceutical field, including drug delivery systems, drug detection, pharmaceutical materials, and disease therapies. In addition, the formation principles and classification of MOGs are complemented and refined, and the techniques for the characterization of the structures/properties of MOGs are overviewed in this review.

Innovative Microstructural Transformation upon CO2 Supercritical Conditions on Metal-Nucleobase Aerogel and Its Use as Effective Filler for HPLC Biomolecules Separation

This work contributes to enlightening the opportunities of the anisotropic scheme of non-covalent interactions present in supramolecular materials. It provides a top-down approach based on their selective disruption that herein has been employed to process a conventional microcrystalline material to a nanofibrillar porous material. The developed bulk microcrystalline material contains uracil-1-propionic acid (UPrOH) nucleobase as a molecular recognition capable building block. Its crystal structure consists of discrete [Cu(UPrO)2 (4,4'-bipy)2 (H2 O)] (4,4'-bipy=4,4'-bipyridine) entities held together through a highly anisotropic scheme of non-covalent interactions in which strong hydrogen bonds involving coordinated water molecules provide 1D supramolecular chains interacting between them by weaker interactions. The sonication of this microcrystalline material and heating at 45 °C in acetic acid-methanol allows partial reversible solubilization/recrystallization processes that promote the cross-linking of particles into an interlocked platelet-like micro-particles metal-organic gel, but during CO2 supercritical drying, the microcrystalline particles undergo a complete morphological change towards highly anisotropic nanofibers. This unprecedented top-down microstructural conversion provides a nanofibrillar material bearing the same crystal structure but with a highly increased surface area. Its usefulness has been tested for HPLC separation purposes observing the expected nucleobase complementarity-based separation.

Advances and Novel Perspectives on Colloids, Hydrogels, and Aerogels Based on Coordination Bonds with Biological Interest Ligands

This perspective article shows new advances in the synthesis of colloids, gels, and aerogels generated by combining metal ions and ligands of biological interest, such as nucleobases, nucleotides, peptides, or amino acids, among other derivatives. The characteristic dynamism of coordination bonds between metal center and biocompatible-type ligands, together with molecular recognition capability of these ligands, are crucial to form colloids and gels. These supramolecular structures are generated by forming weak van der Waals bonds such as hydrogen bonds or π–π stacking between the aromatic rings. Most gels are made up of nano-sized fibrillar networks, although their morphologies can be tuned depending on the synthetic conditions. These new materials respond to different stimuli such as pH, stirring, pressure, temperature, the presence of solvents, among others. For these reasons, they can trap and release molecules or metal ions in a controlled way allowing their application in drug delivery as antimicrobial and self-healable materials or sensors. In addition, the correct selection of the metal ion enables to build catalytic or luminescent metal–organic gels. Even recently, the use of these colloids as 3D-dimensional printable inks has been published. The elimination of the solvent trapped in the gels allows the transformation of these into metal–organic aerogels (MOAs) and metal–organic xerogels (MOXs), increasing the number of possible applications by generating new porous materials and composites useful in adsorption, conversion, and energy storage. The examples shown in this work allow us to visualize the current interest in this new type of material and their perspectives in the short-medium term. Furthermore, these investigations show that there is still a lot of work to be done, opening the door to new and interesting applications.