Preclinical study reveals accelerated calvarial healing in diabetic rats via an electroactive scaffold, highlighting a dual-action strategy to restore tissue homeostasis.
Diabetic bone defects are difficult to repair because chronic hyperglycemia disrupts local immunometabolic and vascular homeostasis, leading to persistent inflammation, poor angiogenesis, and impaired osteogenesis. Here we report a piezoelectrically driven hierarchical biomimetic architecture that promotes diabetic bone defect repair through spatially bidirectional regulation of HIF-1α. The system comprises an ultrasound-responsive PLLA/ZnO/DFO biomimetic periosteum and a conductive GelMA/MXene/Ce-MOF@Arg defect-filling hydrogel. Under ultrasound stimulation, the upper layer generates piezoelectric microcurrents and releases deferoxamine, which is associated with activation of endothelial HIF-1α/VEGF signaling and angiogenic responses, whereas the lower layer relays electrical cues into the defect core and is associated with reduced macrophage HIF-1α expression and glycolytic activity in parallel with arginine delivery and Ce-MOF nanozyme-mediated redox regulation. This design promotes recovery toward a more favorable immunometabolic-vascular state by coupling superficial pro-angiogenic activation with deep anti-inflammatory metabolic remodeling. The scaffold shows favorable piezoelectric, conductive, mechanical, degradation, and release properties, promotes endothelial migration, drives macrophage polarization toward a reparative phenotype, enhances osteogenic-angiogenic coupling, and substantially accelerates critical-sized calvarial defect healing in diabetic rats. Our findings provide an electroactive and spatially coordinated strategy for diabetic bone regeneration.
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Lv et al. (2026) studied this question.
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