Nucleic acid hydrogels have good hydrophilicity, adjustability and biocompatibility, which have attracted considerable attention in the past few years, especially in the field of biomedicine and smart materials. Nucleic acid hydrogel is stimulus-responsive, meaning that external stimuli such as pH changes, light, temperature variations, and chemical triggers (including metal ion response, redox response, and enzyme response) can induce physical and chemical changes within them. Consequently, they are capable of perceiving their environment and undergoing responsive deformation, enabling precise cell therapy that can be controlled both temporally and spatially. Cell capture and release using stimulus-responsive nucleic acid hydrogels can control and modulate cellular behavior, and can also play an important role in biomedical research and applications, such as targeted drug therapies using the capture and release of specific cell types. Based on this, this paper summarizes the preparation methods of pure nucleic acid hydrogels and polymer-nucleic acid hybrid hydrogels, further discusses the application strategies of different stimuli-responsive nucleic acid hydrogels, and focuses on the research progress of cell capture and release in cell imaging, cell therapy and synergistic drug delivery. Finally, we discuss the urgent problems that need to be addressed in the research of nucleic acid hydrogels, and provide a prospect for their future development.

Contents

1 Introduction

2 Preparation of nucleic acid hydrogels

2.1 Pure nucleic acid hydrogel

2.2 Polymer-nucleic acid hybrid hydrogel

3 Stimulus-responsive nucleic acid hydrogels

3.1 pH response

3.2 Light response

3.3 Temperature response

3.4 Chemical trigger

4 Stimulus-responsive nucleic acid hydrogels used for cell capture and release

4.1 Cell imaging

4.2 Cell therapy

4.3 Collaborative drug delivery

5 Conclusion and outlook