[Frontier research on smart delivery biomaterials in the field of oral tissue engineering]

Oral tissue repair faces challenges, including complex types of defects, a harsh local microenvironment, and limitations of conventional therapies. Common diseases, such as periodontitis, maxillofacial tumors, trauma, and congenital deformities, cause defects in the alveolar bone and periodontal tissues, affecting a large population. The demand for tissue repair is increasing with accelerating population aging. Defect sites often exhibit a complex microenvironment accompanied with infection, inflammation, ischemia, and immune imbalance, severely impairing the viability and regene-ration of stem cells. Smart delivery materials function as drug delivery platforms and can respond to endogenous and exo-genous stimuli to achieve the spatiotemporally controlled release of drugs and bioactive factors, enabling targeted and precise therapy. Some of these materials also possess tissue-inductive regenerative properties. Smart delivery materials show important application potential in maxillofacial bone repair, periodontal regeneration, pulp reconstruction, and oral mucosal repair. This review summarizes the design strategies, response mechanisms, and cutting-edge applications of intelligent delivery materials in oral tissue repair. Moreover, it analyzes the critical breakthroughs for their clinical translation from the perspectives of mechanical adaptation and controllable degradation, precise responsive release under complex oral microenvironments, synergistic immunomodulation and anti-infective regeneration, and personalized manufacturing. It thereby provides insights for precision therapy and functional reconstruction in oral tissue repair.