Bio-C (Modified Hyaluronic Acid-Coated-Collagen Tube) Implants Enable Functional Recovery after Complete Spinal Cord Injury.

Liqiang Zhou,Kun Jiang,Junbang Wang,Huina Zhang,Chunxue Zhang,Wenmin Zhu,Yaxuan Deng,Yi Eve Sun,Changhong Zheng,Jiping Liu,Kongyan Wu,Yuchen Mu,Yanling Cui

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics14030596

Liqiang Zhou, Kun Jiang + Show 11 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics14030596

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Abstract

Neural repair within the central nervous system (CNS) has been extremely challenging due to limited abilities of adult CNS neurons to regenerate, particularly in a highly inflammatory injury environment that is also filled with myelin debris. Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious medical condition that often leads to paralysis and currently has no effective treatment. Here we report the construction of a novel biocompatible and biodegradable material, Bio-C, through coating of acid-desalted-collagen (ADC) tube with pre-modified hyaluronic acid, which, after implantation, can elicit quite robust neural regeneration and functional recovery after complete spinal-cord transection with a 2 mm–spinal-cord-segment removal in mice. We combined morphological, electrophysiological, and objective transcriptomic analyses, in addition to behavioral analyses, to demonstrate neural tissue regeneration and functional recovery through the establishment of Bio-C-induced anti-inflammatory, neurogenic, and neurotrophic microenvironment. Through this study, we unveiled the underlying logic for CNS neural repair.

Highlights

A spinal cord injury (SCI) is generally considered to be incurable, because it is wellknown that neurons in the central nervous system (CNS), in contrast to those in the peripheral nervous system (PNS), do not possess strong axonal regeneration properties [1].In addition, CNS neural regeneration is hampered by a harmful inflammatory microenvironment and lots of myelin debris, which are inhibitory for axonal growth [2]
New strategies involving the establishment of anti-inflammatory and neural trophic environment to enable the plasticity of spared neurons to remodel local relay neural networks to allow functional recovery after SCI [4,5] appeared to be more applicable or translatable in clinics
We examined the role of Bio-C in neural repair after SCI by implanting Bio-C in a completely transected with 2 mm-cord-segment-removal model of SCI (Figure 2A)

Summary

Introduction

A spinal cord injury (SCI) is generally considered to be incurable, because it is wellknown that neurons in the central nervous system (CNS), in contrast to those in the peripheral nervous system (PNS), do not possess strong axonal regeneration properties [1].In addition, CNS neural regeneration is hampered by a harmful inflammatory microenvironment and lots of myelin debris, which are inhibitory for axonal growth [2]. New strategies involving the establishment of anti-inflammatory and neural trophic environment to enable the plasticity of spared neurons to remodel local relay neural networks to allow functional recovery after SCI [4,5] appeared to be more applicable or translatable in clinics. In the case of complete SCI with spinal-cord-tissue removal, nascent relay neural networks could be established via de novo genesis of new neurons from endogenous neural stem cells (NSCs) [6,7]. Such relay or patching neural networks can Pharmaceutics 2022, 14, 596.

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