Understanding the toxicity of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) is important for improving their biocompatibility in further applications, especially the hematotoxicity of MOFs due to the unavoidable contact of MOFs with blood in biomedical science. Here we report the hematotoxicity and underlying mechanisms of nano-sized zeolite-like MOFs ZIF-8 and ZIF-67 because of their wide applications in biomedical science. ZIF-67 induced significant hemolysis of red blood cell (Rb) through breaking the structure of membrane due to the generation of free radicals, whereas ZIF-8 was hematocompatible. ZIF-67 was thus internalized by Rb and then bound with hemoglobin via hydrogen bond and van der Waals force, which influenced the structure and function of hemoglobin in accompany with heme release. These findings reveal the detailed mechanism of the hematological effects of MOFs on Rb and are helpful to the assessment of the toxicity and potential health risks of MOFs and the design of biosafe MOFs for biomedical applications.

了解金属有机框架（MOFs）的毒性对于提高其在进一步应用中的生物相容性非常重要，尤其是由于 MOFs 在生物医学科学中不可避免地与血液接触而导致的 MOFs 的血液毒性。在这里，我们报告了纳米级沸石类 MOFs ZIF-8 和 ZIF-67 的血液毒性和潜在机制，因为它们在生物医学科学中具有广泛的应用。ZIF-67由于自由基的产生破坏细胞膜结构，引起红细胞(Rb)的显着溶血，而ZIF-8具有血液相容性。ZIF-67因此被Rb内化，然后通过氢键和范德华力与血红蛋白结合，随着血红素的释放而影响血红蛋白的结构和功能。