Precise construction of hyaluronic acid (HA)-coated drug-loaded iron oxide metal–organic frameworks: Investigation of cell death mechanism in neuroblastoma carcinoma cells

We constructed an iron (Fe²⁺) metal–organic framework (MOF) in this study. We loaded SN-38 into the MOF before coating the MOF's surface with hyaluronic acid (SN-38@HA@MOF) to improve its ability to target cancer cells. SN-38@HA@MOF can specifically target cancer tissues, has a high loading efficiency, is biocompatible, has a good monodispersity, has a robust cell absorption capacity, and produces significant intracellular reactive oxygen species levels. The in vitro cytotoxicity of the nanocomposites was investigated in different neuroblastoma cancer cells (SH-SY5Y and IMR 32). Even at a 200 µg/mL dosage, the IC₅₀ range was as high as 85%, indicating that MOF and HA@MOF are non-cytotoxic to non-cancerous cells and have outstanding biocompatibility and low toxicity. Flow cytometric analyses investigated the cell death morphological investigation and mechanism. The adaptive multifunctional SN-38@HA@MOF has the potential to treat targeted neuroblastoma cancer.