Supramolecular crafting of peptides as novel antimicrobial materials

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have attracted great attention over the past few years as promising candidates to combat bacterial resistance. However, their small molecule nature poses limitations in stability, toxicity, and pharmacokinetics, restricting their <i>in vivo</i> and clinical uses. Supramolecular assembly of AMPs into well-defined nanostructures displays great potential to address the faced challenges, exhibiting unprecedented advantages over the unimolecular ones. The nanostructured AMPs could amplify therapeutic outcomes through enhanced germicidal capacity, improved serum stability, increased host compatibility and prolonged circulation. More importantly, through rational design, one can effectively modulate the interactions between peptides and microbes, promoting capabilities for bacterial capturing, and membrane targeting and disruption. In this review, the recent progress of supramolecular peptide assemblies as antimicrobial materials will be discussed with a focus on the design principle, self-assembly behavior, and applications of supramolecular AMPs. This supramolecular platform could provide excellent alternatives towards traditional antibiotics and AMPs, offering new solutions to tackle drug-resistant infectious pathogens.