Introduction, synthesis procedures, and applications of organic-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers in biosciences

Organic-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers with flower-like morphology are new nanostructures comprising organic and inorganic components. In general, the organic component of hybrid nanoflowers mostly consists of proteins, DNA, RNA, plant extracts, metabolites, and natural polymers; and the inorganic component composes of various metal phosphates, including copper, calcium, manganese, iron, zinc, cobalt, cadmium, aluminum, silver, gold, etc. Until now, five notable procedures have been introduced for their synthesis, including biomineralization, ultra-fast sonication, the two-step method, shear stress, and the concentrated method. These nanostructures have many promising applications in diverse fields, such as the immobilization of enzymes and biomolecules, bio-catalysis of chemical reactions, bioremediation, electrochemical biosensors, drug and gene carriers, diagnosis of various diseases, photothermal therapy, etc., and wide range of research has been performed on them in the last recent decade. Google Scholar, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Springer databases were searched using the keywords hybrid nanostructure, nanoflower, biosciences, and biocatalyst to find related articles. Studying these organic-inorganic hybrid nanocrystals may lead to finding new creative solutions in the effective application of enzyme-based systems, the rapid development of bionanomaterials, and biotechnology industries. The present review has investigated the different types of hybrid nanoflowers, their synthesis procedures and structural characteristics, and their applications in biosciences.