Oxidized sodium alginate hydrogel-mouse nerve growth factor sustained release system promotes repair of peripheral nerve injury

Abstract

In recent years, mouse nerve growth factor (mNGF) has emerged as an important biological regulator to repair peripheral nerve injury, but its systemic application is restricted by low efficiency and large dosage requirement. These limitations prompted us to search for biomaterials that can be locally loaded. Oxidized sodium alginate hydrogel (OSA) exhibits good biocompatibility and physicochemical properties, and can be loaded with drugs to construct a sustained-release system that can act locally on nerve injury. Here, we constructed a sustained-release system of OSA-mouse nerve growth factor (mNGF), and investigated the loading and release of the drug through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and drug release curves. In vitro and in vivo experiments showed that OSA-mNGF significantly promoted the biological activities of RSC-96 cells and facilitated the recovery from sciatic nerve crush injury in rats. This observation may be attributed to the additive effect of OSA on promoting Schwann cell biological activities or its synergistic effect of cross-activating phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) through extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) signaling. Although the specific mechanism of OSA action needs to be explored in the future, the current results provide a valuable preliminary research basis for the clinical application of the OSA-mNGF sustained-release system for nerve repair.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Oxidized sodium alginate hydrogel (OSA)
• mouse nerve growth factor (mNGF)
• peripheral nerve injury
• sustained drug release

Authors’ contributions

Yuming Sun made contributions to the conception and design of the work, and provided the acquisition, analysis of mostly data; Xiangyu Sun provided the acquisition, analysis of partly data; Ruiqi Wang provided the creation of materials used in the work; Yuhang Xing drafted the work; Jie Yue revised the work critically for important intellectual content; Xiang Ma Helped the first author to acquire, analyze data; Min Zhang Helped the first author to acquire, analyze data; Yuezhu Wang Helped the first author to acquire, analyze data; Guangping Jing agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy and provided fund support; Weiming Tian approved the version to be published and provided technical support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by Research Innovation of Fund Harbin Medical University (grant no. 2021-KYYWF-0474) and Research Innovation of Fund First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University (grant no. 2023m28 and 2023b09).