Cellulose acetate/metal–organic framework composite beads with macroporous adsorption channels as a novel hemoadsorbent for effective virus capture

Due to their rapid spread, high variability, and drug-resistant strains, new viral infections are continuously emerging. A lack of effective antiviral drugs and vaccines, resulting in disease and death, has significant socioeconomic consequences. Hemoperfusion can effectively adsorb and remove toxins from the blood, thus purifying the blood and serving as an acute treatment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to construct adsorbents to selectively remove viruses from the blood to quickly treat pathogen infection. We reported on new metal-organic framework (MOF)-polymer beads based on MIL-53(Al) and cellulose acetate (CNC), which were prepared by a one-step phase inversion method and applied as a viral hemo-adsorbent for the first time. The characterization results demonstrated that MIL-53(Al) was well dispersed in the CNC matrix. The adsorption results demonstrated that the capture efficiency of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could exceed 99.93%, and the corresponding infectious titer decreased by approximately 10³ times in clinical application. Moreover, CNC/MIL-53 exhibited low hemolysis ratios and good anticoagulant properties. Furthermore, molecular dynamics simulations revealed that the interplay of hydrogen bonding was the governing physisorption mechanism. Overall, CNC/MIL-53 could serve as a new type of hemoperfusion adsorbent for virus removal from blood and provide a new treatment pathway to mitigate epidemics.