Design of functional polymer nanomaterials for antimicrobial therapy and combatting resistance

Abstract

Human health is facing a severe threat from pathogenic infections, particularly the emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms has deepened the public's fear. The series of clinical diseases caused by microbial infections is constantly increasing. Therefore, they have become one of the hot topics of public health. Polymer materials display unprecedented advantages as effective antimicrobial materials due to their good biocompatibility, easy structure modification, and little proneness to developing drug resistance of pathogens. Herein, we put forward a summarization of research focused on conjugated and non-conjugated polymer materials in the field of killing pathogens in recent years with various therapeutic modes including non-photo inductive therapy, photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT). The current status, challenges, and future prospects of antimicrobial nanostructured materials (aNSMs) are addressed at the same time, devoted to the design and synthesis of aNSMs for ever-increasing demand of killing pathogens.