A review on antibacterial potential of poly-ionic liquid-based biomaterials

Abstract

In recent years, bacterial infection has become one of the significant clinical challenges. The overuse or misuse of antibiotics increases the number of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens and causes enormous medical burdens with high morbidity and mortality. Several strategies have been adopted to tackle this; poly-ionic liquids (PILs), a class of ionic liquids (ILs) systems demonstrating a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activities, have been widely used in biomedical applications. During polymerization, the charge density of the cations, molecular weight, and hydrophobic behavior can be regulated to accomplish more potent antibacterial efficacy with low cytotoxicity. However, inadequate literature is available highlighting the application of PIL-based materials in biomedical applications. Keeping this in mind, the recent advances in PIL-based biomaterials formed by conjugating PIL with natural and synthetic polymers as effective antimicrobial agents have been the focus area of this review.