REVIEW article
Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Cell Growth and Division
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2025.1637189
This article is part of the Research Topic7th International Symposium on Peripheral Nerve Regeneration: Peripheral Nerve Regeneration - Advances and New DirectionsView all 15 articles
Self-Assembling Peptides for Sciatic Nerve Regeneration: A Review of Conduit Microenvironment Modeling Strategies in Preclinical Studies
Provisionally accepted
Elena Stocco*
Silvia Barbon*
Annj Zamuner
Marta ConfalonieriCesare Tiengo
Raffaele De Caro
Veronica MacchiMonica Dettin
Andrea Porzionato- University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Effective nerve conduits development remains a significant challenge in regenerative medicine, with the potential to greatly improve patients' quality of life in case of peripheral nerve injury. To date, several tubular devices have been introduced into clinical practice; however, the outcomes remain suboptimal. As empty conduits, lacking internal guidance structures or bioactive elements, they provide minimal support for nerve regeneration and fail especially in cases of long-gap nerve injuries. In this scenario, intense research efforts are directed toward improving conduit-associated results in vivo. Among the most promising strategies, the in-situ addition of luminal fillers has shown great potential in creating favorable microenvironment for axonal growth and tissue remodeling. Considering the many luminal fillers explored and reported in the literature, Self-Assembling Peptides (SAPs) have achieved significant attention by the scientific community due to their unique ability to arrange into biocompatible, extracellular matrix-like hydrogels that can favorably support axons and Schwann cells regeneration and organization within the conduit, guiding growth toward the distal stump. This review focuses on the use of SAP-based hydrogels as luminal fillers for sciatic
Keywords: Self-assembling peptides, luminal filler, ECM-like environment, Regeneration, Sciatic Nerve, Muscle
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 23 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Stocco, Barbon, Zamuner, Confalonieri, Tiengo, De Caro, Macchi, Dettin and Porzionato. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Elena Stocco, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Silvia Barbon, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.