Luo Yue, Liu Luying, Liao Yuzhen, Yang Ping, Liu Xiaoqi, Lu Lei, Chen Jiang, Qu Chao
Sichuan Provincial Key Laboratory for Human Disease Gene Study, The Department of Medical Genetics, The Institute of Laboratory Medicine, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology, Chengdu, China.
The Department of Ophthalmology, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022 Mar 2;10:855022. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.855022. eCollection 2022.
Corneal injury inevitably leads to disruption of the ocular surface microenvironment, which is closely associated with delayed epithelial cell repair and the development of infection. Recently, drug-loaded therapeutic contact lenses have emerged as a new approach to treating corneal injury due to their advantages of relieving pain, promoting corneal repair, and preventing infection. However, few therapeutic contact lenses could modulate the ocular surface's inflammation and oxidative stress microenvironment. To address this, in this study, we covalently immobilized multifunctional baicalin (BCL), a flavon molecular with anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative stress, and antibacterial capabilities, onto the surface of the contact lens. The BCL-modified contact lens showed excellent optical properties, powerful antibacterial properties, and non-toxicity to endothelial cells. Furthermore, the BCL-modified contact lens could significantly modulate the ocular surface microenvironment, including inhibition of macrophage aggregation and resistance to epithelium damage caused by oxidative stress. In animal models, BCL-modified corneal contact lens effectively promoted corneal epithelial cells repair. These excellent properties suggested that multifunctional BCL molecules had great application potential in the surface engineering of ophthalmic medical materials.
角膜损伤不可避免地导致眼表微环境的破坏，这与上皮细胞修复延迟和感染的发生密切相关。近年来，载药治疗性隐形眼镜因其具有缓解疼痛、促进角膜修复和预防感染等优点，已成为治疗角膜损伤的一种新方法。然而，很少有治疗性隐形眼镜能够调节眼表的炎症和氧化应激微环境。为了解决这一问题，在本研究中，我们将具有抗炎、抗氧化应激和抗菌能力的黄酮类分子多功能黄芩苷（BCL）共价固定在隐形眼镜表面。BCL修饰的隐形眼镜具有优异的光学性能、强大的抗菌性能以及对内皮细胞的无毒性。此外，BCL修饰的隐形眼镜能够显著调节眼表微环境，包括抑制巨噬细胞聚集以及抵抗氧化应激引起的上皮损伤。在动物模型中，BCL修饰的角膜隐形眼镜有效促进了角膜上皮细胞修复。这些优异的特性表明多功能BCL分子在眼科医用材料的表面工程中具有巨大的应用潜力。
