Affiliation:
1. Department of Chemical Engineering The University of Melbourne Parkville Victoria 3010 Australia
2. Key Laboratory of Colloid and Interface Chemistry of the Ministry of Education School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Shandong University Jinan Shandong 250100 P. R. China
3. Centre for Protolife Research and Centre for Organized Matter Chemistry School of Chemistry University of Bristol Bristol BS8 1TS UK
4. School of Engineering RMIT University Melbourne 3000 Australia
Abstract
AbstractNanostructured materials with tunable structures and functionality are of interest in diverse areas. Herein, metal ions are coordinated with quinones through metal‐acetylacetone coordination bonds to generate a class of structurally tunable, universally adhesive, hydrophilic, and pH‐degradable materials. A library of metal‐quinone networks (MQNs) is produced from five model quinone ligands paired with nine metal ions, leading to the assembly of particles, tubes, capsules, and films. Importantly, MQNs show bidirectional pH‐responsive disassembly in acidic and alkaline solutions, where the quinone ligands mediate the disassembly kinetics, enabling temporal and spatial control over the release of multiple components using multilayered MQNs. Leveraging this tunable release and the inherent medicinal properties of quinones, MQN prodrugs with a high drug loading (>89 wt %) are engineered using doxorubicin for anti‐cancer therapy and shikonin for the inhibition of the main protease in the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus.
Funder
Australian Research Council
National Natural Science Foundation of China