Noninvasive Optogenetics Realized by iPSC‐Derived Tentacled Carrier in Alzheimer's Disease Treatment
Neural-activated optogenetics technique contributing to the "restart" of degenerative neurons offers hope for the treatment of several neurodegenerative diseases. However, the limitations of persistent invasiveness and inadequate repair of the pathological environment strongly hinder its further application. Here, a concept of differentiating stem cells is proposed to produce functional materials to enhance the therapeutic applicability of optogenetics. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are differentiated to generate the "tentacled" stem cells TenSCs. Their "tentacled" vesicles TenSCev, upon inheriting the biological functions of the parent cell, will possess both neural targeting capacity and pathological environment repair ability. Hence, TenSCev are utilized as functional carrier to deliver optogenetics elements for completely non-traumatic and controllable neuron activation, while also facilitating the comprehensive restoration of the pathological environment, thus effectively halted disease progression and significantly improved cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease or aged mice. Further, the concept of generating specialized biomaterials from differentiated stem cells as functional carriers holds the potential to broaden the applicability of various neuroregulatory techniques in the treatment of neurological disorders.
Authors
- Yu Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0493-3388)
- Yuewen Zhai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7273-9056)
- Qifeng Zhong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3779-3203)
- Yueqing Gu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1315-4618)
- Bing Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8854-2151)
- Fang He
- Yanqin Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5599-1559)
- Fei Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0073-7478)
- Siwen Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1242-7365)
- Jinnan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9383-1943)
- Fan Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8668-6781)
- Ji Fang
- Shihao Shi
Institutions
- Union Hospital (HK)
- China Pharmaceutical University (CN)
- Jilin University (CN)
- Sichuan University (CN)
- Union Hospital (CN)
- Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Materials
- Published
- 2025-05-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202419768
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Photoreceptor and optogenetics research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.73
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China