Fabrication and biocompatibility assessment of polypyrrole/cobalt(II) metal-organic frameworks nanocomposite

Authors: MEHRNAZ MEHRABANI, ZEINAB ANSARI ASL, FARZANEH ROSTAMZADEH, SAEIDEH JAFARINEJAD FARSANGI, MAHNAZ SADAT HASHEMI, MOZHGAN SHEIKHOLESLAMI, ZEINAB NEISI

Abstract: Nowadays, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising tools for different biological applications and therefore, efforts are ongoing to develop more biocompatible MOFs-based nanocomposites. We aimed to fabricate some new conductive nanocomposites of polypyrrole and cobalt-MOF with different weight percentages (PPy/x%Co-MOF)usingthesolutionmixingmethodandcharacterizethemthroughFT-IR(Fourier-transforminfrared), PXRD (powder X-ray diffraction), SEM (scanning electron microscope), and TEM (transmission electron microscope) techniques. The biocompatibility of nanocomposites was assessed by haemolytic, cytotoxic, and quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) assays. FT-IR and PXRD results revealed that nanocomposites consisted of pure MOFs and PPy. Moreover, SEM results indicated their spherical morphology along with an average diameter of 190 nm. (3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay showed a concentration, and percentagedependent cytotoxic effect of the nanocomposites on some cell lines including 3T3 fibroblasts, MCF-7, and J774.A1 macrophages. HaematologicaltoxicityofPPy/x%Co-MOFcompositeswaslessthan7%inmostconcentrations. Furthermore, PPy/x%Co-MOF composites did not show any significant effect on the expression of cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase(iNOS) genes. In sum, regarding the haemolytic, proinflammatory, and cytotoxic tests, prepared nanocomposite demonstrated the reasonable in vitro biocompatibility which may be considered as a hopeful platform for further investigations including clinical applications.

Keywords: Nanocomposites, polypyrrole, metal-organic frameworks, cobalt.

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