Chiral noble-metal nanomaterials: Chiral origins and biomedical applications

Abstract

Chirality is a fundamental property in nature, and the rapid progress of nanoscience has enabled the design and fabrication of nanoscale materials with precisely controlled chiral architectures. These chiral nanostructures exhibit unique optical, catalytic, and sensing characteristics. Among them, chiral noble-metal nanomaterials owing to their intrinsic localized surface plasmon resonance, catalytic activity, and biocompatibility, show tremendous application potential in the biomedical field. This review provides a comprehensive overview of chiral noble-metal nanomaterials. We first summarize their chiroptical properties and discuss the structural origins of chirality at the molecular, nanoscale, and nano-/micro-size. We then highlight biomedical applications, including biosensing, enantioselective separation, antibacterial applications, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer diagnosis and therapy. Finally, we discuss the key challenges that must be addressed, including the precise and reproducible fabrication of chiral nanostructures, unresolved biosafety concerns, and an incomplete mechanistic understanding at the molecular and cellular levels. We anticipate that, by overcoming these challenges, chiral noble-metal nanomaterials will assume increasingly impactful roles in biomedicine.