Electrochemiluminescence-enhanced mesoporous composite enabling sensitive deoxynivalenol detection and nano-delivery of a ROCK inhibitor for spinal cord injury

Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) creates a highly inhibitory microenvironment that severely limits axonal regeneration and reduces the therapeutic efficacy of the Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK) inhibitor Y-27632. To address this challenge, a natural-product-functionalized coordination composite, SB-CP1@Y-27632 , was developed by integrating silibinin (SB) as a surface modifier, a Cu-based coordination framework (CP1) as an electrochemiluminescent (ECL)-active scaffold, and Y-27632 as the therapeutic cargo. Structural, electrochemical, and optical analyses confirmed that SB functionalization and molecular encapsulation preserved the framework integrity while modulating interfacial charge transfer and stabilizing emissive sites, leading to enhanced ECL performance, potentially associated with localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR)-assisted effects. Leveraging these shared structure-defined features, which govern both interfacial charge transfer and molecular interactions, the composite was applied to a paper-based ECL sensing platform for the sensitive and reliable detection of deoxynivalenol (DON), exhibiting good stability and reproducibility. In parallel, biological studies using Nogo-A–treated dorsal root ganglion neurons demonstrated that nano-encapsulation significantly enhanced the bioactivity of Y-27632, as evidenced by pronounced upregulation of regeneration-associated genes (growth associated protein 43 (Gap43), tubulin beta 3 Class III (Tubb3), rac family small GTPase 1 (Rac1)) and stronger suppression of inhibitory pathway genes (ras homolog family member A (RhoA), Rho associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase 2 (Rock2)). Overall, this work presents a unified materials strategy that integrates electrochemical sensing with functional molecular delivery, providing new insights into the design of multifunctional platforms for bioanalytical and neural repair applications.