Encapsulation of 5-Fluorouracil in a Copper(II)-based Porous Metal-organic Framework: Drug Delivery and Inhibiting Human Spinal Cord Tumor Cells

Solvothermal reaction of a semirigid tricarboxylic acid with Cu(NO3)(2)3H(2)O gives rise to a robust microporous metal-organic framework with the formula {[Cu-2(OH)bcb](DMF)(2)(H2O)(3)}(n) (1) [H(3)bcb = 3,5-bis((4-carboxylbenzyl)-oxy)benzoic acid, DMF = N,N-dimethylformamide]. Its structure was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis and further characterized by elemental analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and thermogravimetric (TG) analyses. The efficient encapsulation of an anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu) on the desolvated 1 (1a) was studied by both grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation and drug release experiments. In addition, in vitro anticancer activity of compounds 1 and 5-Fu loaded 1a were also evaluated using MTT assay.