A promising scaffold with excellent cytocompatibility and pro-angiogenesis action for dental tissue engineering: Strontium-doped calcium polyphosphate.

Abstract

Angiogenesis is of great importance in dental tissue engineering. Therefore, it is quite necessary for dental tissue engineering to develop a new scaffold with bioactivity to induce angiogenesis. This study was performed to determine the ability of 1% strontium-doped calcium polyphosphate (SCPP) to induce angiogenesis by detecting the levels of VEGF and bFGF from cultured human dental pulp cells (hDPCs). Results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) tests indicated the growth of hDPCs on 1%SCPP scaffolds was more superior than that on calcium polyphosphate (CPP) and hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffolds. The detection of MTT indicated 1%SCPP could accelerate proliferation of hDPCs. Further analyzed with ELISA demonstrated the protein levels of VEGF, bFGF from cultured hDPCs on 1%SCPP scaffolds were significantly higher than that on CPP and HA scaffolds. These findings above suggested 1%SCPP could be a promising scaffold for dental tissue engineering to induce angiogenesis.