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REVIEW article

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.

Sec. Cell Adhesion and Migration

This article is part of the Research Topic"Taxis" control of directional cell movement in health and diseaseView all articles

Advances in Adhesion Interfaces of Peripheral Nerve Repair Materials: Mechanism, Classification, Evaluation Method, and Functionalization

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Peking University People's Hospital, Beijing, China
  • 2Shandong Provincial Hospital, Jinan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Peripheral nerve injury is a prevalent clinical disease, but achieving functional recovery remains a significant research challenge. In recent years, the therapeutic efficacy of nerve repair materials has garnered widespread attention from researchers. Notably, the adhesion interface between the repair material and the nerve tissue stands as a critical factor affecting the outcome of nerve regeneration. In this review, we firstly outline the importance of adhesion interface in nerve repair; subsequently, we systematically summarize the typical adhesion mechanisms; in addition, we discuss the design of adhesion interfaces for natural and synthetic materials, as well as the dry and wet adhesion strategies. To address the in vivo wet environment, emphasis is placed on the adhesion design of wet-adhesive materials and related research progress. Furthermore, methods to evaluate adhesion property and strategies for materials functionalization are also provided. Through summarizing the current research findings, this paper aims to provide theoretical basis and technical reference for the optimal de-sign of interfaces of nerve repair materials, thereby facilitating the clinical translational application of peripheral nerve injury repair materials.

Keywords: peripheral nerve injury, nerve repair material, Adhesion interface, Wet adhesion, Functionalization

Received: 15 Oct 2025; Accepted: 29 Nov 2025.

Copyright: Âİ 2025 Meng, Zhang, Zhang, Jiang, Qu, Li, Hu, Lin, Xing, Zhu and Peixun. 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:
Fengxue Zhu
Zhang Peixun

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