Tetrahedral framework nucleic acids act as antioxidants in acute kidney injury treatment

Antioxidants play an early intervention role in the pathogenesis of kidney injury by alleviating oxidative damage to the injured kidney. The development of safe and effective reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers for acute kidney injury (AKI) treatment is still worth exploring. Here, we presented tetrahedral framework nucleic acids (tFNAs) as a therapeutic drug for the treatment of rhabdomyolysis (RM)-AKI. tFNAs exhibited protective effects of cells mainly by relieving oxidative stress and inhibiting apoptosis. The features of tFNAs greatly facilitated kidney enrichment and decreased kidney injuries after injection in AKI models. Our findings showed that tFNAs constituted a novel class of antioxidative nanomaterials for AKI treatment with excellent antioxidant efficiency, superior structure stability, preferential kidney accumulation and good biocompatibility.