Versatile polyphenolic platforms in regulating cell biology

Polyphenolic materials are a class of fascinating and versatile bioinspired materials for biointerfacial engineering. In particular, due to the presence of active chemical groups, a series of unique physicochemical properties become accessible and tunable of the as-prepared polyphenolic platforms, which could delicately regulate the cell activities via cell-material contact-dependent interactions. More interestingly, polyphenols could also affect the cell behaviors via cell-material contact-independent manner, which arise due to their intrinsically functional characteristics (e.g., antioxidant and photothermal behaviors). As such, a comprehensive understanding on the relationship between material properties and desired biomedical applications, as well as the underlying mechanism at the cellular and molecular level would provide material design principles and accelerate the lab-to-clinic translation of polyphenolic platforms. In this review, we firstly give a brief overview of cell hallmarks governed by surrounding cues, followed by the introduction of polyphenolic material engineering strategies. Subsequently, a detailed discussion on cell-polyphenols contact-dependent interfacial interaction and contact-independent interaction was also carefully provided. Lastly, their biomedical applications were elaborated. We believe that this review could provide guidances for the rational material design of multifunctional polyphenols and extend their application window.