Curcumin-regulated constructing of defective zinc-based polymer-metal-organic framework as long-acting antibacterial platform for efficient wound healing

A dual-modal antibacterial platform has been established for highly efficient wound healing infected by bacteria based on a defective zinc-based metal–organic framework composite, which was synthesized using 1,4-phthalic acid-based polyether polymer (L8) as ligand, curcumin as regulator, and Zn2+ as metal coordinated center (Cur@Zn-MOF). In addition to the integration of the features of polymer-MOF synthesized using L8 (such as high water stability and controllable and long-term release of Zn2+) and Zn-bioMOF prepared using curcumin as ligand (such as feasible release of curcumin and Zn2+ and good biocompatibility), the Cur@Zn-MOF bioplatform also possessed plenty of structure defects. Comparing with Zn-bioMOF and polyZn-MOF synthesized using the sole ligand, the smaller released amount of curcumin (6.08 μg mL−1) and higher release level of Zn2+ ions (5.68 μg mL−1) were simultaneously achieved for the defective Cur@Zn-MOF within a long-term duration (48 h). The synergistic effect afforded Cur@Zn-MOF the high sterilization performance toward Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) even at the low usage of 125 μg mL−1. The in vivo wound healing effect further confirmed the superior treatment ability of Cur@Zn-MOF toward the bacterium-infected wound. Also, the negligible cytotoxicity and low hemolysis of Cur@Zn-MOF greatly promoted the viability of human skin fibroblasts. Accordingly, this work can provide a new dual-modal bioplatform based on the functional MOF via the controllable release of antibacterial drug and metal ions for the efficient wound healing.