Bifunctional MXene-Augmented Retinal Progenitor Cell Transplantation for Retinal Degeneration

Retinal 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 (Nb₂ C) MXene enables performance enhancement of RPCs for retinal regeneration. Nb₂ C 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.