Peptide-Based Supramolecular Therapeutics for Fighting Major Diseases

Peptide-based supramolecular therapeutics (PST) refer to those theranostic nanomedicines based on peptide or peptide derivatives self-assembly that are constructed in vitro or in vivo. Benefiting from the inherent advantages of peptides, such as good biocompatibility, high bioactivity, and flexible tunability, the reported PST have shown excellent application prospects in combating many major diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, autoimmune disease, metabolic disease, and so on. Through thoughtful design, the PST can be fabricated in various forms, including self-assembled precursor molecules, functional nano-assemblies, and macroscopic large-scale hydrogels. The involved peptides in the PST can play different roles, such as serving drug carriers for effective delivery, acting as scaffold materials for cell culture, and functioning as bioactive sequences for treating diseases. In this review, a comprehensive overview of traditional strategies is provided to build PST and emphasize their therapeutic applications for fighting major diseases that pose a threat to human life and health. Moreover, the main challenges of PST in systems design, therapeutic application, and clinical translation are also briefly discussed. It is hoped that this review can arouse much more attention to be paid for PST and promote its practical application in the biomedical field. In this review, a comprehensive overview of traditional strategies is provided to build PST and emphasize their therapeutic applications for fighting major diseases that pose a threat to human life and health including cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, etc. The main challenges of PST in systems design, therapeutic application, and clinical translation are also briefly discussed. It is hoped that this review can arouse much more attention to be paid for PST and promote its practical application in the biomedical field. image