Recent progress of intelligent antibacterial nanoplatforms for treating bacterial infection

Bacterial infection has been a severe concern of global health which seriously threatens human lives. Particularly, drug-resistant bacteria and protective biofilm pose nonnegligible challenges for traditional antibiotics therapy. Moreover, no newly-developed antibacterial materials entered the clinical trials so far since there is potential biosafety issue associated. Emerging intelligent antibacterial nanoplatforms (IANPs) with targeting or responsive capability have attracted enormous interests due to their favorable biocompatibility and on-demand and precise therapy against bacterial infection. This review firstly introduced the inherent characterizations of bacteria, and organic substances and chemical properties of the bacterial infection microenvironment, which are the origin for the design of IANPs. Then, according to the function process of IANPs, the intelligent antibacterial principles of IANPs are classified into direct targeting strategy and/or indirect responsive method. The construction of IANPs with different materials sources (such as polymer, inorganic materials, biological materials) were highlighted. The applications of IANPs to treat various bacterial infection-related diseases were also summarized, including hard tissue-related infection, soft tissue-related infection, medical devices-related infection, and others. Finally, future perspectives associated with the biosafety, function, technology of IANPs were discussed hoping to advance the development of novel IANPs for treating bacterial infection.