Abstract
Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become one of the most serious global public health crises. Early detection and effective treatment can effectively prevent deterioration and further spreading of the bacterial infections. Therefore, there is an urgent need for time-saving diagnosis as well as therapeutically potent therapy approaches. Development of nanomedicine has provided more choices for detection and therapy of bacterial infections. Ultrasmall gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) are emerging as potential antibacterial agents and have drawn intense attention in the biomedical fields owing to their excellent biocompatibility and unusual physicochemical properties. Recent significant efforts have shown that these versatile Au NCs also have great application potential in the selective detection of bacteria and infection treatment. In this review, we will provide an overview of research progress on the development of versatile Au NCs for bacterial detection and infection treatment, and the mechanisms of action of designed diagnostic and therapeutic agents will be highlighted. Based on these cases, we have briefly discussed the current issues and perspective of Au NCs for bacterial detection and infection treatment applications.
Highlights
The prevalence of pathogenic bacteria, especially multidrug-resistant bacteria, has become a serious global health crisis (Blair et al, 2015)
We will summarize in details the progress made by Au NCs in the treatment of bacterial infections and classify them into different antibacterial systems based on the fundamental components of Au NCs, including antibiotic-Au NCs systems, antimicrobial peptide-Au NCs systems, small molecule-Au NCs systems, macromoleculeAu NCs systems, and Au NCs-containing combination systems (Table 1)
We have attempted to present a review of the recent efforts on Au NCs from the multipath bacterial diagnostics and treatment
Summary
The prevalence of pathogenic bacteria, especially multidrug-resistant bacteria, has become a serious global health crisis (Blair et al, 2015). Apart from antibacterial activity, unusual photoluminescence properties of Au NCs provide potential applications for their use as detection/imaging agents for bacterial pathogens (Chan and Chen, 2012; Zheng et al, 2018d; Li D. et al, 2019).
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