dc.description.abstract | Enzymes have been widely used in industrial applications such as pulp and paper, texile, and detergents, due to their high efficiency and specificity in catalyzing reactions. However, there are lots of restrictions owing to their instability in harsh environments, i.e., organic solvent, and their difficulty in separating from productions in the reaction solution. Therefore, it is particularly important and potential for enzyme immobilization that can increase the stability and practicality of the enzyme. In our previous report in 2015, we developed an innovative one- pot de novo mild water-based approach to encapsulate an enzyme, catalase, into a zeolitic imidazolate framework-90(ZIF-90), a sub group of Metal- organic Frameworks (MOFs), in which MOFs is capable of protecting embedding enzyme from protease and maintaining its biological activity. Furtherly in 2017, our follow-up study on biocomposites was showing the MOF material is able to provide spatial confinement for enzymes, reducing the structural expansion under the environment of denature reagent such as urea. However, the small pores of the zeolitic imidazolate framework limit the selectivity of enzymes and substrates in the system of enzyme@ZIF-90. Afterward, our laboratory also reported about encapsulating enzymes with large-pore metal-organic frameworks, UiO-66 and Zn-MOF-74, via water-based approach in order to expand the applications of biocomposites.
As we mention about medical treatment, the usage of aluminum-based materials has been done in 20th centuries. Aluminum salt was first used by the immunologist, Alexander T. Glenny, in 1926. And it continues been used until now after it was successfully verified through experiments. Recently, we are focusing on aluminum-based MOFs with biocompatibilites as one of the most promising MOFs which have been widely investigated because of their excellent framework stability. Nowadays the main categories are MIL (for Materials Institute Lavoisier), CAU (for Christian- Albrechts-University) etc. The representative material, MIL-53, was discovered in 2003 and it was verified that it has breathing effect.
In this study, we found that aluminum-based MOFs can be successfully synthesized in one hour via the mild water-based method. Additionally, the synthetic time can be adjusted in a shorten period as temperature raised. As the decrease of amount of organic solvent used among the synthetic process, it can be more close to the meaning of so-called ”green chemistry”. This material can also successfully encapsulate catalase and lipase. Because of its aluminum-based characteristic, this material with biocompatibility can lower the biotoxicity through animal testing, and it will pave the way for further applications owing to its extraordinary potential and performance. As it goes to vaccines, adjuvant has tremendous effect on vaccines, such as lower the dose of vaccines, enlarge the vaccines immune, and widen the extent of antibody reactions. Therefore, using aluminum-based MOFs as adjuvant or other biological products, like monoclonal antibody, will be more potential toward applications. | en_US |