Over the past several decades, rapid advances have been made in the application of nanomaterials in the biomedical field including bioimaging and drug delivery. Owing to the natural biocompatibility, diverse design, and dynamic self-assembly, peptides can be used as modules to construct self-assembled peptide-based nanomaterials, which have a high potential in reducing drug toxicity, improving drug targeting, and enhancing drug delivery efficiency. In this review, three typical design strategies of self-assembled peptide nanomaterials for drug delivery have been summarized including ex situ construction, in situ morphological transformation, and in situ construction of peptide drug delivery systems (PDDs). Drugs can be loaded to peptide nanomaterials by physical encapsulation or chemical conjugation methods, showing enhanced retention effects at tumor sites to increase the uptake rate of drugs. Interestingly, drug-free peptide nanomaterials also can be nanomedicines for delivery. These advances implicate the bright prospect of the self-assembled peptide in intelligent nanomedicine and clinical translation.
Keywords: drug delivery; nanofibrils; nanomaterial; nanoparticles; peptide; self-assembly.