Research progress on self-assembled supramolecular bioactive materials from herbal natural products and their applications in anti-infection field

Infections have always been a major factor threatening human health. The development of anti-infective drugs has made outstanding contributions to curbing the spread of infectious diseases since the 20th century. However, the efficacy of traditional anti-infective drugs is increasingly limited with the emergence of multi-drug-resistant strains, which poses a great threat to global public health security. Hence, it is extremely urgent to develop new anti-infection strategies. Natural products from herbal medicine (NPHM), as an important source for the synthesis of new drugs, have various pharmacological activities. NPHM have been capable of self-assembling to construct novel supramolecular materials, which have demonstrated great application potential in the field of biomaterials. NPHM self-assembled supramolecular bioactive materials (NPHM-SSBMs) exhibit powerful anti-infective biological effects. Moreover, NPHM-SSBMs have targeted delivery, intelligent response, biological membrane permeability, and other functions. NPHM-SSBMs are regarded as a highly promising emerging anti-infection strategy. Firstly, this paper reviews the types, advantages, and limitations of NPHM, as well as the unique properties of NPHM-SSBMs. Subsequently, this review comprehensively analyzes the supramolecular interaction forces and assembly strategy in the self-assembly process of NPHM-SSBMs. More importantly, this article systematically summarizes the action mechanisms and related medical application scenarios of NPHM-SSBMs in the field of anti-infection. Finally, this article summarizes the current challenges and future prospects that NPHM-SSBMs face in practical applications. NPHM-SSBMs, as the new type of supramolecular bioactive materials, have diverse functional properties and strong anti-infection activity, which is expected to open up new development directions in the field of cutting-edge infectious disease treatment.