alleviation of renal ischemia-reperfusion injury by nitric oxide-releasing self-assembled peptide hydrogels

Aim and background: renal ischemia/reperfusion (i/r) injury is a global health problem with high clinical mortality and morbidity rate. nitric oxide (no) deficiency is known to play a key role in renal i/r injury; however, low stability and severe toxicity of high concentrations of no have limited its applications. thus, we developed an in-situ forming self-assembled peptide hydrogel releasing nitric oxide for renal i/r injury. methods: apart from physicochemical and rheological characterizations that confirmed entangled interlocking β-sheets with nanofibrous morphology, real-time rt-pcr, ros production, serum biomarker concentrations and histopathological alterations were explored in a mouse model to assess the therapeutic efficacy of formulations in the treatment of renal i/r injury. results and discussion: peptide hydrogels self-assembled to the formation of an entangled nanofibrous and shear-thinning hydrogel. hydrogels exhibited a sustained no release over 7 days in a concentration-dependent manner. importantly, intralesional injection of hydrogel caused superior recovery of renal i/r injury when compared to free no in terms of histopathological scores. compared to the i/r control group, oxidative stress and inos expression biomarkers showed a significant decline, whereas enos exhibited a significant increment, indicating regeneration of the injured endothelial tissue. conclusion: taken together, the novel self-assembled peptide hydrogel can be recommended for the alleviation of renal i/r injuries.