Abstract
Polydopamine–ethylene glycol dimethacrylate copolymer is a biocompatible coating with cell adhesion promotion and antibiofilm properties. This copolymer has been successfully applied on metallic implants, such as stainless steel and titanium implants, using several deposition techniques (e.g. layer-by-layer, silane activation, chemical vapor deposition, or liquid-assisted plasma polymerization). However, its application in zirconia ceramic materials, which are widely used in dentistry and medicine, has never been described. In this work, polydopamine–ethylene glycol dimethacrylate copolymer has been deposited on ultra-smooth surfaces of yttria-stabilized zirconia discs (average roughness = 2.08 ± 0.08 nm) by using liquid-assisted atmospheric-pressure plasma-induced polymerization (LA-APPiP). After the polymerization, the nanometric coating (250 nm, measured by ellipsometry) had an average roughness of 79.85 ± 13.71 nm and water contact angle of 57.8 ± 2.2 degrees, consistent with the highly hydrophilic nature of the biocompatible copolymer, if compared to the pristine zirconia (72.7 ± 2.0 degrees). The successful covalent bonding of the copolymer with the zirconia surface, thanks to the previous activation of the substrate with oxygen plasma, was proved by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The polymer composition has been investigated by XPS and Raman spectroscopies. The LA-APPiP technique has been proved to be an excellent method to produce homogenous films without the need to employ solvents and further purification steps. The new copolymer film allows the uniform growth of human osteoblast-like MG-63 cells, after 7 days of cell culture, as observed by fluorescence microscopy.
Highlights
The use of bioceramic materials in dentistry and medicine has been increasing in the past decades due to the facile modulation of their dynamic properties and the simplicity of the required fabrication processes.[1]
Atmospheric-pressure plasma deposition of poly(EGDMA-co-DOPA methacrylamide (DOMAm)) in zirconia substrates activated by oxygen plasma
Previous works demonstrated the applicability of the LA-APPiP deposition method to obtain biocomposites for biomedical applications.[23,24]
Summary
In the dental industry, there is a signi cant interest in producing surface treatments on zirconia-based substrates to achieve enhanced broblast adherence, decrease bio lm formation, and focus on therapeutic aims.[10,11,12] The objective is to improve osseointegration and antimicrobial activity in order to reduce the percentage of biomaterial rejections once implanted.[13,14,15,16]. The nanocoating was designed to contain polydopamine molecules,[26,27,28] which promote surface adhesion due to catecholamine groups[29] and biominerals formation,[30,31] such as calcium phosphates and hydroxyapatites, that are responsible for the rapid osseointegration of medical implants.[32,33] the acrylate polymer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA), exhibits biocompatibility, insigni cant cytotoxicity, and is extendedly used in the dental eld as an adhesive between the titanium screw and the ceramic crown of a dental implant.[34,35] For instance, Lee and co-workers[36] have demonstrated the enhanced biocompatibility of the zirconia surface modi ed with 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine (L-DOPA) lms Those authors employed an aqueous base solution (dip-coating method) for the zirconia surface modi cation. MG-63 cells are one of the most employed osteoblast-like cells used for in vitro biocompatibility approach with biomedical materials, as for example, stainless steel, titanium, zirconia, and methacrylate adhesives used in the dentistry eld.[11,20,23,38,39]
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