Ji Yutian, Yuan Yue, Peng Fuming, Fu Shiyu, Liu Bin, Dong Zhiyue, Li Quan, Ma Shuangcheng, Ao Zhimin
Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials Co-constructed by the Province and Ministry, Ministry-of-Education Key Laboratory for the Synthesis and Application of Organic Functional Molecules, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, P.R.China.
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Therapeutic Substance of Traditional Chinese Medicine, School of Chinese Materia Medica, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin 301617, P.R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025 Jan 22;17(3):5223-5231. doi: 10.1021/acsami.4c17612. Epub 2025 Jan 7.
Chinese herbal medicine has offered a great treasure for discovering intrinsically bioactive low molecular weight gelators (LMWGs). Herein, the two-component hydrogels comprising glycyrrhizic acid (GA) and puerarin (PUE), the primary bioactive components, respectively, from herbs and are successfully prepared. Combined spectroscopic characterizations reveal that hydrogen bonds are formed between GA and PUE molecules, which further drives the growth of nanofiber assemblies into gel networks. Importantly, micromorphological observation by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and molecular dynamic simulation suggest that a coassembly pathway is involved in the gelling process. Such two-component hydrogels exhibit good injectable, self-healing, and adhesive properties. Interestingly, the mixed GA-PUE hydrogels demonstrate a more efficient and selective antibacterial activity toward instead of , and a PUE ratio-dependent antibacterial activity toward is also observed. Our work highlights that CHM-derived LMWGs can provide a scaffold for developing multicomponent hydrogels, which may afford novel and distinct properties compared with their individual ones. It is assumed that more multicomponent supramolecular hydrogels derived from CHM would appear to better address the challenges, particularly in the biomedical field.
中草药为发现具有内在生物活性的低分子量凝胶剂（LMWGs）提供了巨大的宝库。在此，成功制备了分别由甘草酸（GA）和葛根素（PUE）这两种来自草药的主要生物活性成分组成的双组分水凝胶。联合光谱表征表明，GA和PUE分子之间形成了氢键，这进一步推动了纳米纤维聚集体生长成凝胶网络。重要的是，通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）、同步辐射小角X射线散射（SAXS）和分子动力学模拟进行的微观形态观察表明，凝胶化过程涉及共组装途径。这种双组分水凝胶具有良好的可注射性、自愈性和粘附性。有趣的是，混合的GA-PUE水凝胶对[具体细菌1]表现出比[具体细菌2]更高效、更具选择性的抗菌活性，并且还观察到对[具体细菌1]的抗菌活性与PUE比例有关。我们的工作强调，源自中草药的LMWGs可以为开发多组分水凝胶提供一个支架，与它们各自的组分相比，多组分水凝胶可能具有新颖独特的性质。据推测，更多源自中草药的多组分超分子水凝胶将出现，以更好地应对挑战，特别是在生物医学领域。
