Material-herbology: An effective and safe strategy to eradicate lethal viral-bacterial pneumonia

Summary Clinically, lethal viral-bacterial pneumonia is a severe threat to human health worldwide. Here, for the first time, we propose a “material-herbology” strategy, in which herbal medicines are utilized as materials or refreshed by using materialogy methods to enhance their therapeutic effect. Specifically, in this work, natural tea nanodots (TNDs, with an average size of ~3 nm) are made from several kinds of catechins extracted from Chinese black tea (Black TNDs). The antibacterial mechanism (transmembrane interactions and specific targets of amino acids) against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and antiviral mechanism (inhibition of the active site of neuraminidase) against H1N1 are explored. The Black TNDs had excellent biosafety in piglets, and in combination with luteolin the optimized synergistic aerosol therapy exhibited greater advantage against lethal H1N1-MRSA pneumonia than the reported clinical therapy, owing to the rapid clearance of H1N1 and MRSA as well as the antioxidant-related anti-inflammatory effect.