Piezoelectric materials, with their unique ability for mechanical‐electrical energy conversion, have been widely applied in important fields such as sensing, energy harvesting, wastewater treatment, and catalysis. In recent years, advances in material synthesis and engineering have provided new opportunities for the development of bio‐piezoelectric materials with excellent biocompatibility and piezoelectric performance. Bio‐piezoelectric materials have attracted interdisciplinary research interest due to recent insights on the impact of piezoelectricity on biological systems and their versatile biomedical applications. This review therefore introduces the development of bio‐piezoelectric platforms from a broad perspective and highlights their design and engineering strategies. State‐of‐the‐art biomedical applications in both biosensing and disease treatment will be systematically outlined. The relationships between the properties, structure, and biomedical performance of the bio‐piezoelectric materials are examined to provide a deep understanding of the working mechanisms in a physiological environment. Finally, the development trends and challenges are discussed, with the aim to provide new insights for the design and construction of future bio‐piezoelectric materials.
The
tumor microenvironment (TME) featured by immunosuppression
and hypoxia is pivotal to cancer deterioration and metastasis. Thus,
regulating the TME to improve cancer cell ablation efficiency has
received extensive interest in oncotherapy. However, to reverse the
immunosuppression and alleviate hypoxia simultaneously in the TME
are major challenges for effective cancer therapy. Herein, a multifunctional
platform based on Au nanoparticles and a carbon dots modified hollow
black TiO2 nanosphere (HABT-C) with intrinsic cascade enzyme
mimetic activities is prepared for reversing immunosuppression and
alleviating hypoxia in the TME. The HABT-C NPs possess triple-enzyme
mimetic activity to act as self-cascade nanozymes, which produce sufficient
oxygen to alleviate hypoxia and generate abundant ROS. The theoretical
analysis demonstrates that black TiO2 facilitates absorption
of H2O and O2, separation of electron–holes,
and generation of ROS, consequently amplifying the sonodynamic therapy
(SDT) efficiency. Specifically, HABT-C exhibits favorable inhibition
of immunosuppressive mediator expression, along with infiltrating
of immune effector cells into the TME and reversing the immunosuppression
in the TME. As a result, HABT-C can effectively kill tumor cells via
eliciting immune infiltration, alleviating hypoxia, and improving
SDT efficiency. This cascade nanozyme-based platform (HABT-C@HA) will
provide a strategy for highly efficient SDT against cancer by modulation
of hypoxia and immunosuppression in the TME.
Nanodrugs are becoming increasingly important in the treatment of bacterial infection, but their low penetration ability to bacterial biofilm is still the main challenge hindering their therapeutic effect. Herein, nitric oxide (NO)‐driven nanomotor based on L‐arginine (L‐Arg) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) loaded dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (AG‐DMSNs) is fabricated. AG‐DMSNs have the characteristics of cascade catalytic reaction, where glucose is first catalyzed by the asymmetrically distributed AuNPs with their glucose oxidase (GOx)‐ mimic property, which results in unilateral production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Then, L‐Arg is oxidized by the produced H2O2 to release NO, leading to the self‐propelled movement. It is found that the active movement of nanomotor promotes the AG‐DMSNs ability to penetrate biofilm, thus achieving good biofilm clearance in vitro. More importantly, AG‐DMSNs nanomotor can eliminate the biofilm of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in vivo without causing damage to normal tissues. This nanomotor provides a new platform for the treatment of bacterial infections.
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