Components of Essential Oils as Building Blocks of Functional Materials for Nanomedicine. Metal-Phenolic Networks and Oxidative Polymerization Approaches

CAJIAO CHECCHIN, VALENTINA CHIARA; GONZALEZ, ARIEL; ARRIETA GAMARRA, DIANA; FAGALI, NATALIA; FERNÁNDEZ LORENZO DE MELE, MÓNICA ALICIA

Pharmacological Aspects of Essential Oils Current and Future Trends

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

Lugar: London; Año: 2023;

Phytophenols (PPs) are major components of essential oils and are known for their medicalapplications associated to their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, and antimicrobialcharacteristics, and to their cardio-, kidney-, lung-, UV- and neuro-protective properties. Asstrong reductive agents, PPs can form, by self- assembly/polymerization (SAP), thin layers andnanostructures including nanoparticles (NPs) of interesting medical properties. PPs like tannicacid (TA), caffeic acid, pyrogallol, gallic acid (GA), and the phenolic amine dopamine, amongothers are used as assembling units. The high coordination affinities of PPs allow them to actas raw materials of inorganic-organic networks for applications in medicine. These supra-molecular structures are formed by central metal ions and phenolic building blocks, such as TAor GA, and are known as metal-phenolic networks (MPNs). MPNs and SAP can develop onmaterials of diverse topography and composition like hollow capsules, hydrogels, PPs-basedNPs, etc., with main applications in cancer but increasing developments for infection,cytoprotection, diabetes and cardiovascular or neurodegenerative diseases and as well astheragnostic. The construction of these diverse innovative structures (MPNs and SAP) and theirapplications in medicine, will be reviewed in this chapter.