Room-temperature preparation of coordination polymers for biomedicine

Porous nanoscale coordination polymers (NCPs), self-assembled from metal ions and organic ligands, has rapidly progressed in the multidisciplinary areas (e.g. materials science, nanomedicine and nanotechnology) because of high porosity, large specific surface area and diversified structure. Researches focused on the combination of NCPs and biomedicines have shown great promise in the fields of biosensing, drug storage/delivery and biocatalysis. Incorporation of biomolecules or drugs within NCPs can effectively promote their stabilities and applications. However, the heating procedure during the preparation of the NCP composites may affect their activity. Therefore, mild preparation conditions are significant. Recent years, many NCPs have been prepared under room temperature in the presence of biomolecules or drugs. And, this strategy greatly protects the activity of the guest biomolecules/drugs. This review summarizes the NCPs prepared under room-temperature for biomedicine, including biosensing, bioimaging, drug delivery and enzyme/protein storage. The remarkable advances and challenges are also discussed.