Chiral Gold Nanohedgehogs With Stereocomplementary Synergy for Potent Antibacterial Activity

This study developed an active, highly efficient physical antibacterial strategy that exploits chiral nanomaterials to effectively recognize and interact with the chiral microenvironment of bacterial membranes. Chiral gold nanohedgehogs (L/D-Au NH) are designed and fabricated with a unique morphology that facilitates "stereospecific matching" to bacterial membranes. Experimental results demonstrate that D-Au NH exhibit a remarkable 43.7% improvement in mechanical antibacterial activity compared to their L-Au NH counterparts. This finding quantitatively substantiates the rational chiral configuration for the antibacterial properties, which can be attributed to the enhanced bacterial recognition and stronger interfacial interactions with chiral components present on bacterial cell membranes, as indicated by the remarkable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signal amplification observed for lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and peptidoglycan (PG). Furthermore, these chiral nanostructures exhibit superior photothermal conversion efficiency upon activation with chirality-matched circularly polarized light (CPL), thereby synergistically enhancing antibacterial efficacy. Consequently, the developed D-Au NH enable the almost complete eradication of bacterial biofilms. This research underscores the considerable biomedical potential of precisely engineered chiral nanomaterials in combating antibiotic resistance.