Multifunctional MXene-based platforms for intraoral wound healing: integrating antibacterial, immunomodulatory, and responsive therapeutic functions—a review

Abstract: Intraoral wound healing remains a significant clinical challenge due to the complex oral microenvironment, which is characterized by continuous microbial colonization, enzymatic activity, mechanical stress, and persistent inflammation. These factors often influence the effectiveness of conventional wound management strategies and highlight the need for advanced multifunctional biomaterials capable of simultaneously controlling infection, modulating inflammation, and promoting tissue regeneration. Among emerging nanomaterials, MXenes have attracted considerable attention due to their unique physicochemical properties, including high surface area, excellent photothermal conversion efficiency, electrical conductivity, hydrophilicity, and tunable surface chemistry. Thus, this review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in MXene-based platforms for intraoral wound healing by emphasizing the synthesis and functionalization of MXenes, their antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and pro-regenerative mechanisms, and their integration into smart therapeutic systems such as hydrogels, scaffolds, and microneedle-based drug delivery platforms. MXene-based biomaterials can provide antibacterial activity, photothermal therapy, immunomodulatory effects, and stimuli-responsive drug release, offering localized and minimally invasive therapeutic approaches for oral wound management. Furthermore, the incorporation of MXenes into stimuli-responsive systems enables controlled and localized release of therapeutic agents under external triggers such as near-infrared irradiation. Despite these promising developments, several challenges remain, including oxidation-induced instability, incomplete understanding of long-term biosafety, adaptation to complex oral wound geometries, and limitations in large-scale manufacturing. Future research should focus on developing stable hybrid composites, multifunctional personalized therapeutic platforms, and standardized preclinical and clinical evaluation strategies. MXene-based biomaterials represent a promising next-generation approach for responsive and multifunctional intraoral wound therapy, with significant potential for future clinical translation.