Papers of the Week

Osteoarthritis (OA) is associated with lubrication failure of articular cartilage and severe inflammatory response of joint capsule. Synergistic therapy combining joint lubrication and anti-inflammation emerges as a novel treatment of OA. In this study, bioinspired by ultra-low friction of natural articular synovial fluid and mussel adhesion chemistry, a biomimetic nanosystem with dual functions of enhanced lubrication and stimuli-responsive drug release was developed. A dopamine mediated strategy realized one step biomimetic grafting of hyaluronic acid on fluorinated graphene. The polymer modified sheets exhibited highly efficient near-infrared absorption, and showed steady lubrication with a long-time under various working conditions, in which the coefficient of friction was reduced by 75% compared to H O. Diclofenac sodium with a high loading capacity of 29.2% was controllably loaded, and responsive and sustained drug release was adjusted by near-infrared light. Cell experiments revealed that the lubricating nanocarrier was taken up by endocytosis, and anti-inflammation results confirmed that the nanosystem inhibited osteoarthritis deterioration by up-regulating cartilage anabolic gene and down-regulating catabolic proteases and pain-related gene. Our work proposes a promising biomimetic approach to integrate polymer modified fluorinated graphene as a novel dual-functional nanosystem for effective synergistic therapy of OA. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.