A novel full solar light spectrum responsive antimicrobial agent of WS2 quantum dots for photocatalytic wound healing therapy

Abstract

Photocatalytic antimicrobial therapy (PCAT) is considered to be a potential therapeutic treatment for bacterial-infection diseases. However, the antibacterial efficiency is unsatisfactory due to the limited application scope of photocatalysis. In this work, full-spectrum responsive tungsten disulfide quantum dots (WS₂ QDs) are prepared for killing bacteria and enabling wound healing through photocatalytic reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and glutathione (GSH) depletion. On the one hand, these ultrasmall WS₂ QDs exhibit an excellent full spectrum (UV-Vis-NIR)-responsive photocatalytic effect by hindering the recombination of electron–hole pairs, thereby achieving the full use of the energy spectrum. Furthermore, the full-spectrum photocatalytic property of the as-prepared WS₂ QDs can be effectively strengthened by redox reaction to deplete GSH for accelerated wound healing. In a word, the as-prepared nanoplatform exhibits the ability to act as an admirable antibacterial reagent with full-spectrum catalytic performance for photocatalytic wound healing therapy. Therefore, this work will not only provide an effective full-spectrum photocatalytic reagent for anti-bacteria therapy and wound healing, but also provide a rational idea for the development of other novel antibacterial agents for applications in the biomedical field.