posted on 2019-01-30, 00:00authored byWeiwei Bao, Lin Xie, Xuhui Zeng, Hang Kang, Shiqi Wen, Ben Cui, Wenting Li, Yisong Qian, Jie Wu, Ting Li, Keyu Deng, Hong-Bo Xin, Xiaolei Wang
Inspired
by cocktails, we designed a medium term (2–20 weeks)
male contraceptive strategy. Through a sequential injection process
of four reagents (calcium alginate hydrogel, PEG-Au nanoparticles
(PEG-AuNps), EDTA, and PEG-AuNps), physical clogging of the vas deferens
and chemical inhibition of the sperm motility were realized simultaneously.
The contraceptive period could be directly preset by adjusting the
injection ratio of each reagent. More interesting, the embolism area
could be readily dredged through a short-time noninvasive near-infrared
irradiation. The present study offered an effective and reversible
manner to fill the gap of current medium-term contraceptive strategy.
In addition, the proposed in vivo pipeline plugging
technology, with a flexible noninvasive self-cleared characteristic,
might also provide a convenient and reliable strategy for some other
biomedical engineering researches.