Work

Acoustic manipulation and intracellular drug release promote bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells to repair articular cartilage defect

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) possess multidirectional differentiation potential and are regarded as a promising approach for the treatment of cartilage defects. However, how to aggregate and adsorb BMSCs to the injured sites of cartilage and promote their directional differentiation into chondrocytes has always been a key issue to be solved. Here, we fabricated Kartogenin (KGN)-loaded PLGA nanobubbles (KGN-NBs) and swallowed them into BMSCs, obtaining KGN-NBs-containing BMSCs (KGN-NBs@BMSCs). Also, we designed a polylactic acid (PLA) acoustically response scaffold which can produce local sound field under low intensity ultrasound irradiation, and capture KGN-NBs@BMSCs to aggregate on the surface of scaffold. More importantly, KGN could be intracellularly released from KGN-NBs under a short burst of high-energy burst ultrasound irradiation, greatly promoting chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs and favoring to repair articular cartilage defect. Our study provides a new strategy for the treatment of cartilage defects.

Source: Chemical Engineering Journal

DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2025.171228