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EDITORIAL article

Front. Chem., 04 January 2023
Sec. Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
This article is part of the Research Topic Antibacterial, Anti-inflammatory, and ROS-Responsive Drug Delivery Nanoplatforms View all 5 articles

Editoral: Antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and ROS-responsive drug delivery nanoplatforms

  • 1Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, Liaoning, China
  • 2Northwest University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
  • 3University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
  • 4Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China

Bacterial infection, excessive inflammation, and excessive oxidative stress are widespread in the microenvironments of many infectious lesions and wounds. These problems commonly occur during the repair of arthritis cartilage, gout, diabetic wounds, and chronically infected wounds. To solve excessive inflammation, excessive oxidative stress, and related long-term chronic pain, hormonal drugs and non-steroidal drugs are widely used in clinical practice; however, the damage to the gastrointestinal tract, liver, and kidney function caused by these drugs cannot be ignored. Regarding these Research Topic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive drug delivery nanoplatforms are very attractive and promising.

Yin et al. reported berberine-modified ZnO nanocolloids loaded with a hydrogel (ZnO-Ber/H) for use as a nanoplatform in diabetic wound healing. ZnO-Ber/H significantly downregulated the levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 inflammatory factors by 72.8%, 55%, and 71%, respectively. Meanwhile, ZnO-Ber/H upregulated the anti-oxidative stress factors Nrf2, HO-1, and NQO1 by 4.65-fold, 2.49-fold, and 2.56-fold, respectively, facilitating the construction of a microenvironment for tissue repair. In addition, ZnO-Ber/H enhanced the expression of the vascular-associated factors VEGF and CD31 by 3.9-fold and 3.2-fold, respectively, which in turn promoted tissue granulation and neovascularization. In vivo treatment showed that the use of ZnO-Ber/H resulted in a 92.9% wound healing rate in a 15-day treatment cycle, significantly shortening the diabetic wound healing cycle.

Lv et al. designed a coordination compound coated with hyaluronic acid (HA), based on apigenin (API) and Mn2+, for the treatment of ulcerative colitis caused by sodium dextran sulfate. API-Mn(II)@HA effectively repaired the intestinal barrier by modulating typical and atypical inflammatory signaling pathways, significantly improving damaged colon tissue by regulating inflammatory factor expression. HA encapsulation improved the targeting effect of API-Mn(II)@HA on colonic inflammation, effectively reducing side effects and improving the bioavailability. The results reveal that API-Mn(II)@HA exhibited stronger anti-inflammatory effects than the reference drug 5-ASA and effectively alleviated ulcerative colitis with a good biosafety profile.

Ma et al. proposed a gentamicin-loaded type I collagen/hyaluronic acid multilayer modified titanium coating [TC-AA(C/H)6-G] for reducing the risk of infection after bone implant placement. TC-AA(C/H)6-G achieved an efficient loading of gentamicin (537.22 ± 29.66 g) and good controlled release in vivo (240 h retardation time) through encapsulation of type I collagen and hyaluronic acid multilayers. The results show that the TC-AA(C/H)6-G coating significantly inhibited colonization and biofilm formation and prevented medullary infections caused by S. aureus. The slow-release properties of the TC-AA(C/H)6-G coating effectively address the shortcomings of high local drug concentrations and the low utilization of conventional drug delivery methods, making it a potentially attractive option for preventing implant infections.

Gao et al. reported epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)-loaded gold nanocages (AuNCs) as anticancer nanoplatforms. AuNCs-EGCG exhibited near-infrared (NIR)–responsive properties, a maximum photothermal temperature of 41.4°C, and good photothermal stability. Under NIR irradiation, AuNCs-EGCG achieved synergistic inhibition of hepatocellular carcinoma cell proliferation via the photothermal effect and the release of EGCG. NIR-responsive AuNCs-EGCG significantly upregulated caspase-3 almost 2-fold and downregulated Bcl-2 almost .33-fold, which effectively inhibited HepG2 cell proliferation through the mitochondrial pathway.

The goal of this Research Topic is to explore and obtain multifunctional nanoplatform materials with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and oxidative stress-regulating functions, which can be applied for diabetic wound repair, arthritis cartilage repair, and other relevant circumstances. This Research Topic aims to highlight the most advanced achievements in the medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry of nanoplatform materials, which should inspire and guide the future direction of this field.

Author contributions

ZC: Wrote the draft. ZC, BS, XH, and LS: Reviewed and edited the article.

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank the authors, reviewers, and the Frontiers in Chemistry development team, whose efforts have led to the success of this Research Topic. ZC acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 82072076).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Keywords: antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, oxidative stress, drug delivery, nanoplatform

Citation: Chen Z, Song B, Huang X and Sang L (2023) Editoral: Antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and ROS-responsive drug delivery nanoplatforms. Front. Chem. 10:1124486. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.1124486

Received: 15 December 2022; Accepted: 19 December 2022;
Published: 04 January 2023.

Edited and reviewed by:

Michael Kassiou, The University of Sydney, Australia

Copyright © 2023 Chen, Song, Huang and Sang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Zhenhua Chen, zhchen561@jzmu.edu.cn

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.