Natural drug physcion encapsulated zeolitic imidazolate framework, and their application as antimicrobial agent

Abstract In this study, we have encapsulated natural physcion (PHY) drug loading into metal-organic frameworks MOFs, zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) through straight-forward nano-precipitation technique. The synthesized PHY@ZIF-8 indicated high drug loading encapsulation efficiency i.e. 88%, whereas, drug loading capacity was found to be 11.49%. The characterization of PHY loaded-ZIF 8 (PHY@ZIF-8) was carried out by powder x-ray diffraction (PXRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and FT-IR methods. The release of PHY loaded in ZIF-8 was 88.72% at pH 5.0 which is approximately three time higher than its release in physiological system with pH 7.4 (27.61%). The remarkable stability of PHY@ZIF-8 NPs even after 25 days stem it as an effective and stable candidate. Furthermore, the antibacterial activity of pure PHY, ZIF-8 and PHY@ZIF-8 were investigated against gram negative strains and gram positive strain. The PHY@ZIF-8 showed maximum growth inhibition zones against all microorganism as compare to pure PHY. We hope that this model drug could have the potential ability for treatment of various infectious diseases.