Bioactive Peptides for Oral Diseases: Biomaterial-Assisted Therapeutics and Translational Applications

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Science
• Oral Medicine
• Peptide Therapeutics

Background:

• Oral diseases like caries, periodontitis, and infections pose significant clinical challenges.
• Current treatments face limitations such as rapid clearance, antimicrobial resistance, and inadequate tissue repair.
• Bioactive peptides show promise due to their tunable properties and diverse therapeutic activities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review advancements in bioactive peptides for oral diseases.
• To emphasize biomaterial-assisted strategies for enhancing peptide therapy.
• To discuss applications and future translational challenges.

Main Methods:

• Review of recent literature on bioactive peptides and biomaterial platforms for oral applications.
• Analysis of peptide design, functional modification, and biomaterial integration (nanoparticles, hydrogels, coatings, mucoadhesives).
• Discussion of applications in infection control, inflammation, tissue regeneration, and targeted therapy.

Main Results:

• Biomaterial platforms improve peptide stability, local retention, controlled release, and site-specific activity.
• Integrated strategies show potential for infection control, inflammation regulation, and tissue regeneration.
• Emerging solutions involve rational peptide engineering, AI-guided design, and synthetic biology.

Conclusions:

• Integrating bioactive peptides with biomaterial systems offers a promising framework for next-generation oral therapeutics.
• Addressing challenges in safety, manufacturing, and reproducibility is crucial for clinical translation.
• Advanced peptide engineering and synthetic biology are key to overcoming current limitations.