Distinct features of iron based metal organic frameworks (MOFs) for ferroptosis mediated cancer therapy: A comprehensive review

In the recent years, ferroptosis, a novel non-apoptotic iron dependent form of programmed cell death, gained lots of attention in the treatment of several disease like cancer, ischemic-reperfusion injury, kidney deterioration, and neurological illnesses. Among all these diseases, concept of ferroptosis is widely explored for cancer therapy now days because ferroptosis is capable of overcoming multi drug resistance as well as apoptosis-based resistance of cancers. Because of iron dependency in ferroptosis, iron-based nanoconstructs are widely explored for ferroptosis mediated cancer therapy. In recent years, several iron-based nanoconstructs i.e. iron-doped nanoparticles, iron oxide nanoparticles, upconversion iron nanoparticles, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) of iron, polymeric micelles incorporating iron, iron-based nanoparticles-drug conjugates etc., have been reported to cause ferroptosis mediated cell death. Among them MOFs gained lots of attention now days. This review summarized the concept of ferroptosis and its role in the cancer therapy along with the description of various mechanisms involved in the ferroptosis mediated cancer therapy. Various preparation methods of MOFs with their merits and demerits are also summarized in tabular manner. The review also discusses various strategies of MOFs for induction of tumor cell ferroptosis. Apart from this, the current trends in ferroptosis based combinational cancer therapy and advancement in iron-based MOFs which includes ferroptosis based combinational therapy with chemotherapy, phototherapy, diagnosis and imaging, autophagy, immunotherapy, starvation therapy and multimodal therapy are also explored. In last, various toxicity issues associated with the iron-based MOFs are also discussed in this review.