Zeolites are safe mineral sorbents and carriers of therapeutic agents

Abstract

Zeolites are natural aluminosilicates with a porous structure. They possess unique sorption, ion-exchange, and detoxifying properties. Clinoptilolite is the least toxic and is used to treat wastewater, improve the agrophysical properties of soils, stimulate seed germination and plant growth, and incorporate into livestock and poultry feed. This review focuses on the use of zeolites in medicine, both as stand-alone dietary supplements and as carriers of therapeutic agents. The sorption and staged, prolonged release of probiotics from a preparation created by the combined lyophilization of clinoptilolite-containing rock and lactic acid bacteria cultures are discussed. The methods for processing the natural mineral, its elemental composition, and porosity are characterized. This porosity allows for the incorporation of probiotic bacteria and therapeutic proteins into the cavities and channels of the zeolite, which are biovoids formed during the dissolution and recrystallization of the calcareous skeleton of fossilized biota. Particular attention is paid to the immobilization of the bacillary ribonuclease binase, which exhibits antitumor activity against human intestinal adenocarcinoma cells, on a mineral carrier. The potential for using organomineral complexes of probiotics with clinoptilolite for restoring the microbiota after toxic exposure is demonstrated, as well as the potential for using complexes of ribonucleases immobilized on the mineral as new antitumor therapeutic agents.