@article{fe7a9944289a4423b9c562241ff2fffb,
title = "Highly Permeable DNA Supramolecular Hydrogel Promotes Neurogenesis and Functional Recovery after Completely Transected Spinal Cord Injury",
abstract = "Regeneration after severe spinal cord injury cannot occur naturally in mammals. Transplanting stem cells to the injury site is a highly promising method, but it faces many challenges because it relies heavily on the microenvironment provided by both the lesion site and delivery material. Although mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and biodegradability of delivery materials have been extensively explored, their permeability has rarely been recognized. Here, a DNA hydrogel is designed with extremely high permeability to repair a 2 mm spinal cord gap in Sprague–Dawley rats. The rats recover basic hindlimb function with detectable motor-evoked potentials, and a renascent neural network is formed via the proliferation and differentiation of both implanted and endogenous stem cells. The signal at the lesion area is conveyed by, on average, 15 newly formed synapses. This hydrogel system offers great potential in clinical trials. Further, it should be easily adaptable to other tissue regeneration applications.",
keywords = "DNA, hydrogel, spinal cord injury",
author = "Taoyang Yuan and Yu Shao and Xu Zhou and Qian Liu and Zhichao Zhu and Bini Zhou and Yuanchen Dong and Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Songbai Gui and Hao Yan and Dongsheng Liu",
note = "Funding Information: T.Y. and Y.S. contributed equally to this work. The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 21890731, 21821001, 21534007, 81502154, 21890730), National Basic Research Plan of China (2018YFA0208900), Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Z16110000211600), and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7192033) for financial support. The authors also thank Cuiping Zhang and Yilin Sun for their assistance in analyzing the TEM results. All experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with IACUC guidelines provided by The Scripps Research Institute, The Genomics Institute of Novartis Foundation, Tsinghua University and the Johns Hopkins University. Funding Information: T.Y. and Y.S. contributed equally to this work. The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 21890731, 21821001, 21534007, 81502154, 21890730), National Basic Research Plan of China (2018YFA0208900), Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Z16110000211600), and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7192033) for financial support. The authors also thank Cuiping Zhang and Yilin Sun for their assistance in analyzing the TEM results. All experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with IACUC guidelines provided by The Scripps Research Institute, The Genomics Institute of Novartis Foundation, Tsinghua University and the Johns Hopkins University. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
day = "2",
doi = "10.1002/adma.202102428",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "33",
journal = "Advanced Materials",
issn = "0935-9648",
publisher = "Wiley-VCH Verlag",
number = "35",
}