Acellular allogeneic nerve grafting combined with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell transplantation for the repair of long-segment sciatic nerve defects:biomechanics and validation of mathematical models

We hypothesized that a chemically extracted acellular allogeneic nerve graft used in combination with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell transplantation would be an effective treatment for long-segment sciatic nerve defects.To test this,we established rabbit models of 30 mm sciatic nerve defects,and treated them using either an autograft or a chemically decellularized allogeneic nerve graft with or without simultaneous transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells.We compared the tensile properties,electrophysiological function and morphology of the damaged nerve in each group.Sciatic nerves repaired by the allogeneic nerve graft combined with stem cell transplantation showed better recovery than those repaired by the acellular allogeneic nerve graft alone,and produced similar results to those observed with the autograft.These findings confirm that a chemically extracted acellular allogeneic nerve graft combined with transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells is an effective method of repairing long-segment sciatic nerve defects.

Benzimidazolium Functionalized Polysulfone-based Anion Exchange Membranes with Improved Alkaline Stability

The stability of anion exchange membranes（AEMs） is an important feature of alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells（AEMFCs）, which has been extensively studied. However it remains a real challenge due to the harsh working condition. Herein, we developed a novel type of polysulfone-based AEMs with three modified 1,2-dimethylbenzimidazoliums containing different substitutes at C4-and C7-position. The results showed that the introduction of the substitutes could obviously improve the dimensional and alkaline stabilities of the corresponding membranes. The swelling ratios of resultant AEMs were all lower than 10% after water immersion. The membrane with 4,7-dimethoxy-1,2-dimethylbenzimidazolium group exhibited the highest alkaline stability. Only 9.2% loss of hydroxide conductivity was observed after treating the membrane in 1 mol·L^（-1） KOH solution at 80 °C for 336 h. Furthermore, the density functional theory（DFT） study on the three functional group models showed that the substitutes at C4-and C7-position affected the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital（LUMO） energies of the different 1,2-dimethylbenzimidazolium groups.