ABSTRACT
Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history, unique system and perfect technology, which has been used to prevent or treat a variety of diseases in the form of compound medicine. Recently, some of the active ingredients from Chinese medicine were found to have self-assembly properties, mainly through non-covalent interactions, including π-π stacking, electrostatic interaction, hydrogen bond and coordination interactions, etc. Carrier-free nanoparticles based on self-assembly of active ingredients from Chinese medicine could not only improve the solubility of insoluble active ingredients, but also the bioavailability. As nanocarriers, the natural active ingredients could exert synergistic therapeutic effects. The strategy of self-assembly without carrier is safer and almost non-toxic compared to the commonly used nanocarriers. In addition, some ingredients from Chinese medicine could coordinate with metal ions to form stable nanoparticles, which could be applied to photothermal therapy. In this paper, we summarized and analyzed the recent achievements of carrier-free nanoparticles based on self-assembly of active ingredients from Chinese medicine, and briefly outlined the future development of this kind of nanomedicine.