Developing functional nanoagents for achieving the combination of microwave dynamic therapy (MDT) and microwave thermal therapy (MTT) is highly desirable due to the advantages of improving the therapeutic effect on tumors and minimizing the side effects. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as emerging porous materials, exhibit many intriguing properties for application in biomedicine. Herein, new-style flexible Mn-doped zirconium metal-organic framework (Mn-ZrMOF) nanocubes (NCs) with the average size of about 60 nm were prepared easily by a one-pot hydrothermal method. Due to the strong inelastic collision of ions confined in a large number of micropores, the Mn-ZrMOF NCs were demonstrated to be an effective microwave-sensitive agent with a high thermal conversion efficiency up to 28.7%, which is the highest one of the recently reported microwave-sensitive agents. This is the first report of determining the microwave thermal conversion efficiency, which can be used to evaluate, compare, and predict the microwave sensitivity of different microwave-sensitive agents. More importantly, such Mn-ZrMOF NCs generate abundant reactive oxygen species (ROS) of hydroxyl radicals under microwave irradiation. As such, the Mn-ZrMOF NCs efficiently suppress the tumor cell growth in vivo and in vitro under mild microwave irradiation for the synergic effect of MTT and MDT. This work paves the way for developing nanoagents that are responsive to microwave irradiation, producing ROS and improving thermal effects to realize the noninvasive MTT and MDT treatment in clinics.
Keywords: Mn-ZrMOF nanocubes; hydroxyl radicals; microwave dynamic therapy; microwave thermal therapy; synergistic therapy.