Traditional Chinese medicine-derived sporopollenin microcapsules: drug-carrying mechanism, drug delivery applications and their challenges

As one of the classic Chinese herbs, spore powder has a long history of medicinal value, not only in terms of therapeutic efficacy, but also through the defatting and removal of the contents can be constructed sporopollenin (SP) cavity structure, which can be used as a highly efficient drug carrier. Compared with synthetic carriers, sporopollenin, as a natural biomaterial, has demonstrated multiple applications in biomedical fields by virtue of its excellent biocompatibility, physicochemical stability, and dimensional homogeneity, and has successfully achieved efficient loading of anti-tumour drugs, proteins, and other active ingredients, and can be further developed into a smart drug delivery system by surface modification technology. In this paper, we summarise the preparation process, loading mechanism, drug delivery system design principle of sporopollenin from traditional Chinese medicine, and its research progress on intelligent drug delivery system, such as targeted delivery and responsive release, and discuss its development prospect, with a view to providing theoretical references and technological support for the promotion of the wide application of traditional Chinese medicine-derived sporopollenin microcapsules in the field of biomedicine.