Surface modification of TiO2 nanoparticles with organic molecules and their biological applications

In recent years, titanium(IV) dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2NPs) have shown promising potential in various biological applications such as antimicrobials, drug delivery, photodynamic therapy, biosensors, and tissue engineering. For employing TiO2NPs in these fields, their nanosurface must be coated or conjugated with organic and/or inorganic agents. This modification can improve their stability, photochemical properties, biocompatibility, and even surface area for further conjugation with other molecules such as drugs, targeting molecules, polymers, etc. This review describes the organic-based modification of TiO2NPs and their potential applications in the mentioned biological fields. In the first part of this review, around 75 recent publications (2017–2022) are mentioned on the common TiO2NP modifiers including organosilanes, polymers, small molecules, and hydrogels, which improve the photochemical features of TiO2NPs. In the second part of this review, we presented 149 recent papers (2020–2022) about the use of modified TiO2NPs in biological applications, in which specific bioactive modifiers are introduced in this part with their advantages. In this review, the following information is presented: (1) the common organic modifiers for TiO2NPs, (2) biologically important modifiers and their benefits, and (3) recent publications on biological studies on the modified TiO2NPs with their achievements. This review shows the paramount significance of the organic-based modification of TiO2NPs to enhance their biological effectiveness, paving the way toward the development of advanced TiO2-based nanomaterials in nanomedicine.