Spiky nanostructures for virus inhibition and infection prevention

The outbreak of a novel highly infectious virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has aroused people's concern about public health. The lack of ready-to-use vaccines and therapeutics makes the fight with these pathogens extremely difficult. To this point, rationally designed virus entry inhibitors that block the viral interaction with its receptor can be novel strategies to prevent virus infection. For ideal inhibition of the virus, the virus-inhibitor interaction has to outperform the virus-host interaction. In our view, the morphology of the inhibitor should be carefully designed to benefit virus-inhibitor binding, especially that the surfaces of viruses are mostly rough due to the existence of surface proteins for receptor-binding. In this perspective article, we would like to discuss the recent progress of designing inhibitors with spiky topography to maximize the interactions between viruses and inhibitors. We also would like to share our idea for the future study of inhibitors to prevent virus infection.