Fig. 3

Preparation process of a nucleic acid aptamer-bilayer scaffold and its therapeutic evaluation for osteochondral defects. a Overview of the aptamer-bilayer scaffold in osteochondral defect repair. b The scaffold was implanted into the osteochondral defect in rats. After an eight-week healing period, histomorphological analyses were performed, including safranin-O staining for glycosaminoglycans (GAG) and immunohistochemical staining for collagen type II to evaluate cartilage regeneration. Concurrently, microcomputed tomography (μCT) reconstruction and hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of articular joint samples were conducted to assess subchondral bone regeneration. The aptamer-bilayer scaffold demonstrated significantly higher scores across all evaluated parameters compared to other groups. Reproduced form ref. ²¹⁷ with permission from Wiley, copyright 2017