Abstract

Inspired by nature, eumelanin-like polymeric antioxidants have been widely used for the treatment of various oxidative stress-related diseases in recent years. In response to functional requirements, extensive studies have been conducted to improve the antioxidant properties of eumelanin-like materials, but the dilemma brought by the oxidative polymerization strategy has never been broken. Herein, the natural eumelanin precursor, levodopa, was integrated with formylphenylboronic acid through dynamic covalent chemistry to give antioxidant nanoparticles. Benefiting from this synthetic scheme, the resulting dynamic nanoscavengers avoided the loss of antioxidant moieties during the fabrication process and could achieve interesting ROS-responsive degradation behaviors. These nanoscavengers exhibited over ten times the antioxidant capacity of conventional eumelanin-like materials and demonstrated improved efficacy in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury therapy, with treatment groups showing more optimal levels of oxidative stress markers and inflammation-related factors. This study provides new insights into the design and development of a new generation of melanin-inspired antioxidant materials.