Natural\nBerberine-Based Chinese Herb Medicine Assembled Nanostructures with\nModified Antibacterial Application

The\nabuse of traditional antibiotics has caused a series of health problems\nincluding antimicrobial resistance, which threatens human health.\nTherefore, searching for broad sources of antimicrobial agents and\ndeveloping multidimensional strategies to combat bacterial infections\nare urgent. Here, we reported two natural self-assembling modes between\nberberine (BBR) and flavonoid glycosides: nanoparticles (NPs) and\nnanofibers (NFs), which were both mainly governed by electrostatic\nand hydrophobic interactions. These two nanostructures exhibited different\nantibacterial properties from BBR. NPs showed significantly enhanced\nbacteriostatic activity, whereas NFs displayed a much weaker effect\nthan BBR. The distinguishing properties can be attributed to the different\nspatial configurations and self-assembly processes of NPs and NFs.\nFlavonoid glycosides and BBR first formed a one-dimensional complex\nunit and subsequently self-assembled into three-dimensional nanostructures.\nWith the hydrophilic glucuronic acid toward the outside, NPs exhibited\nstronger affinity to bacteria, thereby inducing the collapse of the\nbacteria population and the decrease in biofilm. In addition, <i>in vitro</i> hemolysis tests, cytotoxicity tests, and <i>in vivo</i> zebrafish toxicity evaluation showed that the obtained\nself-assemblies had good biocompatibility. This supramolecular self-assembly\nstrategy can be applied to construct other nanoscale antibacterial\ndrugs and thus provides weapons for the development of self-delivering\ndrugs in bacterial infection treatment.