Microbial infections pose major threats to human health, and such a situation is further exasperated by microbial resistance to conventional antibiotics. It is therefore highly imperative to develop antimicrobial agents or strategies to achieve effective microbicidal effects. Recently, conjugated polymers (CPs) have shown their capacity to serve as effective photothermal agents (PTAs) for antimicrobial photothermal therapy (PTT). In this review, we first introduce the latest advances in the development of CPs as PTAs for combating microbes. We focus on the most-investigated polydopamine (PDA)-based PTT for killing microorganisms, in which the PDA-based PTAs are mainly in the formulations of nanoparticles, hydrogels, and surface coatings. Meanwhile, we present antimicrobial PTT based on the other CPs, including polypyrrole, polyaniline, and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene). Finally, we discuss both the current limitations and future directions of the CP-derived antimicrobial PTT.

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基于共轭聚合物的光热疗法用于杀死微生物

微生物感染对人类健康构成重大威胁，而且微生物对常规抗生素的耐药性进一步加剧了这种情况。因此，迫切需要开发有效的杀菌作用的抗菌剂或策略。近来，共轭聚合物（CP）已显示出它们具有用作抗菌光热疗法（PTT）的有效光热剂（PTA）的能力。在这篇综述中，我们首先介绍了CPs作为对抗微生物的PTA的最新进展。我们致力于研究最多的基于聚多巴胺（PDA）的PTT杀灭微生物，其中基于PDA的PTA主要存在于纳米颗粒，水凝胶和表面涂层的配方中。同时，我们介绍了基于其他CP的抗菌PTT，包括聚吡咯，聚苯胺和poly（3，4-亚乙基二氧噻吩）。最后，我们讨论了CP衍生抗菌PTT的当前局限性和未来发展方向。