Cationic conjugated polymers for detection and inactivation of pathogens

Conjugated polymers (CPs) are referred to a kind of fluorescent polymer materials with delocalized pi-conjugated backbones. For the last decades, cationic CPs (CCPs) have been widely used in biosensor, imaging and biomedical fields due to their good photophysical properties and solubility in water medium resulting from side chain modification with ionized moieties. In this mini-review, we mainly introduced the applications of CCPs in detection and inactivation of pathogen with typical examples, and also briefly discussed the relevant mechanisms. We hold the expectation that this mini-review can offer researchers a general reference and inspire them to construct new systems with high performances of pathogen detection and antimicrobial activity.