Functional MOFs as theranostics

Abstract Among the concepts proposed so far to improve the performance of drug nanovector, the integration of diagnosis/imaging and therapy (called “theranostics”) into a single nanoparticle has emerged as an essential breakthrough in nanomedicine, allowing monitoring the treatment in real time. Considering their high drug adsorption capacities, biocompatible MOFs have been widely used as drug delivery systems or as therapeutic agents in preclinic research. In this chapter, we cover the recent advances of the different synthetic strategies of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based nano-objects for theranostics application. For that purpose, MOFs nanoparticles were mainly combined with a wide diversity of components including organic molecules (dyes, polymers) and inorganic nanoparticles (metals, oxides, up-conversion nanoparticles). Herein, we mainly discuss the latest developments of cancer theranostics based on nanoMOFs, which includes topical MOFs such as MIL-100(Fe), ZIF-8(Zn) and UiO-66(Zr), etc.