Biomaterial-Based Defenders Boost Biopharmaceuticals Efficacy for Spinal Cord Injury Treatment: A Review

Spinal cord injury (SCI) has seriously affected the lives of patients and brought economic and medical burdens to society. Biopharmaceuticals, including transplanted cells, growth factors, enzyme drugs, and microRNA, present multidimensional therapeutic effects in tissue repair and regeneration, and thus are widely utilized for the treatment of SCI. Nevertheless, they still encounter great challenges. The turbulent microenvironment accompanied by various destructive components following SCI has led to poor stability, low local accumulation, and reduced therapeutic efficacy of biopharmaceuticals. To this end, biomaterial-based defenders (BBDs) that are capable of resisting the destructive components have shown great promise in improving the survival of transplanted cells or retaining the activity of the protein and nucleic acid drugs for the treatment of SCI. In this review, various types of biopharmaceuticals applied in SCI and their limitations are introduced. The destructive components that threaten the activities of biopharmaceuticals in the rigorous microenvironment are then summarized. In particular, the current research progress about BBDs boosting the efficacy of biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of SCI is illustrated with specific examples. The existing challenges and future perspectives are also provided.