Fig. 3: In vivo brain protection of the nanosystem in MCAO-induced ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Sham group was taken as the control group and the mice in other four groups were treated by MCAO and corresponding administration of saline, T-mPDA, Mino, and T-mPDA-Pep-Mino at a Mino concentration of 10 mg/kg. a Scheme of MCAO-induced ischemia-repefusion injury model. Created with BioRender.com. b Ex vivo fluorescence imaging of brains and brain slices from the mice treated by free Cy5.5 (control), non-targeted nanosystem (mPDA-Pep-Mino) and brain-targeted nanosystem (T-mPDA-Pep-Mino). Magnified section: the right side of brain slices indicates the ischemic area. c Representative TTC staining images of brain slices in five groups. d Infarct volume analysis of brain slices in five groups (n = 8 independent animals). ****P < 0.0001, **P = 0.0011, *P = 0.0239, compared between the groups of T-mPDA-Pep-Mino and Saline, T-mPDA, and Mino. e Neuronal function evaluation of the mice by neurological scoring (n = 8 independent animals). ****P < 0.0001, *P = 0.0237, *P = 0.0412, compared between the groups of T-mPDA-Pep-Mino and Saline, T-mPDA, and Mino. f Survival rate of the MCAO mice after different treatments within seven days (n = 6 independent animals). *P = 0.0454, compared between the groups of T-mPDA-Pep-Mino and Saline. g Neuronal function evaluation of the MCAO mice by neurological scoring at day 3 and day 7 after the injury (n = 7 independent animals). h BBB permeability evaluation of the MCAO mice by EB staining at day 7 after different treatments (n = 3 independent animals). **P = 0.0014, compared between the groups of T-mPDA-Pep-Mino and Saline. A two-tailed P value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. The data are presented as means ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.