Recent antioxidative nanomaterials toward wound dressing and disease treatment via ROS scavenging

Reactive oxygen species (ROS), the main cause of many tissue damage and diseases, are known to be significantly harmful to various biological components in cells, for example, lipids, proteins, and DNA. It has been reported that there are four major sources of ROS generation in human bodies: the respiration chain in mitochondria, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase, xanthine oxidase (XO), and cytochrome P450 (CYP450). Herein, we summarize probable generation mechanisms of ROS in vivo and potential oxidative damage caused by these reactive species. To protect cells from the oxidative damage caused by ROS, numerous antioxidative nanomaterials have been artificially designed to address this issue. Thanks to such tiny nanoscales, antioxidative nanomaterials achieve enhanced catalysis, better conductivity, improved mechanical strength, and most importantly, special antioxidative behaviors. As a result, a brief review of recent antioxidative nanomaterials and their specific design concepts are provided, unprecedentedly, categorized by their nanostructure dimensions. In this way, nanomaterials are divided into four categorizations: from zero dimension to three dimensions. In the end, the recent developments of antioxidative nanomaterials toward ROS-related diseases, including tissue wounds, alcoholic liver disease and radiation-induced injury are concluded.