Pathogens cause infections and millions of deaths globally, while antipathogens are drugs or treatments designed to combat them. To date, multifunctional nanomaterials (NMs), such as organic, inorganic, and nanocomposites, have attracted significant attention by transforming antipathogen livelihoods. They are very small in size so can quickly pass through the walls of bacterial, fungal, or parasitic cells and viral particles to perform their antipathogenic activity. They are more reactive and have a high band gap, making them more effective than traditional medications. Moreover, due to some pathogen’s resistance to currently available medications, the antipathogen performance of NMs is becoming crucial. Additionally, due to their prospective properties and administration methods, NMs are eventually chosen for cutting-edge applications and therapies, including drug administration and diagnostic tools for antipathogens. Herein, NMs have significant characteristics that can facilitate identifying and eliminating pathogens in real-time. This mini-review analyzes multifunctional NMs as antimicrobial tools and investigates their mode of action. We also discussed the challenges that need to be solved for the utilization of NMs as antipathogens.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a major causative pathogen of a highly contagious, acute enteric viral disease. This study evaluated the emergence of nine variants in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces of China from 2020 to 2023. S gene-based phylogenetic analysis indicated that three variants belong to the G1c subgroup, while the other six strains are clustered within the G2c subgroup. Recombination analyses supported that three variants of the G1c subgroup were likely derived from recombination of parental variants FR0012014 and a donor variant AJ1102. In addition, there are novel mutations on amino acid 141–148 and these likely resulted in changes in antigenicity in the three variants. These results illustrated that the study provides novel insights into the epidemiology, evolution, and transmission of PEDV in China.

Promyelocytic leukaemia nuclear bodies (PML-NBs) possess an important intrinsic antiviral activity against α-herpesvirus infection. PML is the structural backbone of NBs, comprising different isoforms. However, the contribution of each isoform to α-herpesvirus restriction is not well understood. Here, we report the role of PML-NBs and swine PML (sPML) isoforms in pseudorabies virus (PRV) infection in its natural host swine cells. We found that sPML-NBs exhibit an anti-PRV activity in the context of increasing the expression level of endogenous sPML. Of four sPML isoforms cloned and examined, only isoform sPML-II/IIa, not sPML-I and IVa, expressed in a sPML knockout cells inhibits PRV infection. Both the unique 7b region of sPML-II and sumoylation-dependent normal formation of PML-NBs are required. 7b possesses a transcriptional repression activity and suppresses viral gene transcription during PRV infection with the cysteine residue 589 and 599 being critically involved. We conclude that sPML-NBs inhibit PRV infection by repressing viral gene transcription through the 7b region of sPML-II. IMPORTANCE: PML-NBs are nuclear sites that mediate the antiviral restriction of α-herpesvirus gene expression and replication. However, the contrition of each PML isoform to this activity of PML-NBs is not well characterized. Using PRV and its natural host swine cells as a system, we have discovered that the unique C-terminus of sPML isoform II is required for PML-NBs to inhibit PRV infection by directly engaging in repression of viral gene transcription. Our study not only confirms in swine cells that PML-NBs have an anti-viral function, but also presents a mechanism to suggest that PML-NBs inhibit viral infection in an isoform specific manner.