Nanoparticles green-formulated by Salvia leriifolia aqueous extract: Green synthesis, chemical characterization, and its application in improving the repair of damaged articular cartilage

Abstract

Damaged cartilage has very low regenerative potential which has led to the search for novel tissue-engineering approaches to help treat cartilage defects. While various approaches have been reported, there is no perfect treatment currently. In this study, we evaluated the effects of green formulation of titanium nanoparticles by Salvia leriifolia on a model of knee joint injury in chicks. The NPs characterization was run by the techniques of ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray crystallography (XRD), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The NPs materialized in spherical morphology with average size of less than 40 nm. The peaks at different 2 Theta values of 25.23, 37.73, 47.95, 54.93, and 62.66 are corresponded to planes of (101), (004), (200), (211), and (204) of TiO2. The peaks at 280, 328, and 459 nm show the surface plasmon resonance of the synthetic NPs. In the medicine experiments, primary cultured chondrocytes applied to assess the efficacy of nanoparticles on chondrogenesis. Then, using an animal mice knee model articular cartilage injury, we determined the functional recovery after nanoparticles transplantation by western blot, PCR, and histological analysis. The findings revealed that nanoparticles made notable effects on stimulating chondrogenesisand accelerated the recovery of injury-induced dysfunction by gait analysis when followed for 20 days. The application of nanoparticles suppressed the abnormal angiogenesis and fibrosis at the injury site, decreased the levels of inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, TNF-α, p-p65, and MMPs expression and up-regulated the expressions of Sox9 and Col2a1. Histochemical analysis revealed that there was more cartilage matrix synthesis and chondrocyte proliferation and less abnormal vasculature formation in the complexes containing nanoparticles presence.