Affiliation:
1. Department of Ophthalmology Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Shanghai 200011 P. R. China
2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orbital Diseases and Ocular Oncology Shanghai 200011 P. R. China
3. Materdicine Lab School of Life Sciences Shanghai University Shanghai 200444 P. R. China
Abstract
AbstractRetinal degeneration, characterized by the progressive loss of retinal neurons, is the leading cause of incurable visual impairment. Retinal progenitor cells (RPCs)‐based transplantation can facilitate sight restoration, but the clinical efficacy of this process is compromised by the imprecise neurogenic differentiation of RPCs and undermining function of transplanted cells surrounded by severely oxidative retinal lesions. Here, it is shown that ultrathin niobium carbide (Nb2C) MXene enables performance enhancement of RPCs for retinal regeneration. Nb2C MXene with moderate photothermal effect markedly improves retinal neuronal differentiation of RPCs by activating intracellular signaling, in addition to the highly effective RPC protection by scavenging free radicals concurrently, which has been solidly evidenced by the comprehensive biomedical assessments and theoretical calculations. A dramatically increased neuronal differentiation is observed upon subretinal transplantation of MXene‐assisted RPCs into the typical retinal degeneration 10 (rd10) mice, thereby contributing to the efficient restoration of retinal architecture and visual function. The dual‐intrinsic function of MXene synergistically aids RPC transplantation, which represents an intriguing paradigm in vision‐restoration research filed, and will broaden the multifunctionality horizon of nanomedicine.
Funder
National Key Research and Development Program of China
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Engineering,Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous),General Materials Science,General Chemical Engineering,Medicine (miscellaneous)