Herb-Based Chiral Nanomaterials: Potential Application in Wound Healing and Nanomedicine

The remarkable progress in nanomedicine has opened new frontiers in boosting therapeutic efficacy and reducing off-target side effects. However, fabricating chiral nanomaterials remains challenging due to difficulties in sustaining chiral configuration stability. In this study, chiral injectable liquid formulations are fabricated via the co-assembly of phenylalanine-derived enantiomers, flavonoids and chitosan, to tackle the drawbacks of existing chiral nanomaterials for wound healing. The weakly acidic chitosan solution effectively resolved the low-solubility defect of flavonoids extracted from Scutellaria baicalensis, and the chiral transfer strategy among these co-assembled components overcomes the problem of chiral lability. The resulting chiral formulations displayed strong antioxidant and antibacterial capacities and significantly accelerated wound closure in the Staphylococcus aureus-infected chronic wound model. This research provides valuable insights for the design of herb-functionalized formulations and lays a foundation for the development of advanced chiral nanomaterials with broad applications in nanomedicine.