Work

Conductive, injectable hydrogel equipped with tetramethylpyrazine regulates ferritinophagy and promotes spinal cord injury repair

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Up to now, the clinical treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI) to recover the locomotion function, sensory function, and autonomic function of patients is a global medical challenge. In this study, based on the excellent effects of Tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) on regulating pathological micro-environment, we designed a new injectable conductive hydrogel consists of water-soluble polypyrrole (Ppy), agar, and TMP. The TMP@PA hydrogel has excellent physicochemical properties, bio-safety, and drug release ability, which can be injected into lesions in situ without secondary injury for SCI. Our in vivo and in vitro experiments have demonstrated that the TMP@PA hydrogel can not only fill the spinal cord cavity to reconstruct the electrical conduction pathway but also release TMP continuously to inhibit ferroptosis by regulating nuclear receptor coactivator 4 (NCOA4)-mediated ferritinophagy regulated by Yes-Associated Protein (YAP) to promote SCI repair. Collectively, TMP@PA hydrogel may be an effective tissue engineering scaffold to treat SCI with highly promising clinical applications.

Source: International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.137887

Authors: Jingwei Tao, Jingya Zhou, Lin Xu, Jizhou Yang, Xiaohong Mu, Xiao Fan