Antibiotic resistance has posed a great threat to human health. The emergence of antibiotic resistance has always outpaced the development of new antibiotics, and the investment in the development of new antibiotics is diminishing. Supramolecular self-assembly of the conventional antibacterial agents has been proved to be a promising and versatile strategy to tackle the serious problem of antibiotic resistance. In this review, the recent development of antibacterial agents based on supramolecular self-assembly strategies will be introduced.

RNA interference (RNAi) therapy is a promising approach for cancer therapy. However, due to the weak binding affinity between a carrier and small interference RNA (siRNA) and complicated tumor environment, efficient loading and release of siRNA still remain challenging. Here, we design photo-cleavable polycations-wrapped upconversion nanoparticles (PC-UCNPs) for spatially and temporally controllable siRNA delivery. The PC-UCNPs are synthesized by in situ reversible addition−fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization of photo-cleaved 5-(2-(dimethylamino)ethoxy)-2-nitrobenzyl acrylat (MENA) monomer and poly(oligo(ethylene oxide) methyl ether acrylate (OEMA) mononer through a chain transfer agent that anchored on the surface of silica-coated upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs@SiO₂). After reacting with CH₃I, siRNA and hyaluronic acid (HA) are adsorbed on the particle surface to prepare PC-UCNPs/siRNA/HA. The reaction with cell-secreted hyaluronidase (HAase) achieves the intracellular delivery of PC-UCNPs/siRNA/HA, and 980 nm laser irradiation causes siRNA release, which effectively improves the gene silencing efficiency in vitro and suppresses tumor growth in vivo; therefore, these processes have a promising potential application in precision medicine.