As a novel cellular
therapy, the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory virtues of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) make them promising candidates for
systemic sclerosis (SSc) treatment. However, the clinical efficacy of this stratagem is limited because of the short persistence time, poor survival, and engraftment of MSCs after injection in vivo. Herein, we develop a novel MSCs-laden
injectable self-healing
hydrogel for SSc treatment. The
hydrogel is prepared using
N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan (CS-CM) and 4-armed
benzaldehyde-terminated
polyethylene glycol (PEG-BA) as the main components, imparting with self-healing capacity via the reversible
Schiff-base connection between the amino and
benzaldehyde groups. We demonstrate that the
hydrogel laden with MSCs not only promoted the proliferation of MSCs and increased the cellular half-life in vivo, but also improve their immune-modulating functions. The tube formation assay indicates that the MSCs could significantly promote angiopoiesis. Moreover, the MSCs-laden
hydrogel could inhibit
fibrosis by modulating the synthesis of
collagen and ameliorate
disease progression in SSc disease model mice after
subcutaneous injection of
bleomycin. All these results highlight this novel MSCs-laden
hydrogel and its distinctive functions in treatment of chronic SSc, indicating the additional potential to be used widely in the clinic.