Abstract
Magnesium (Mg) alloys are promising materials for biodegradable implants, but their clinical translation requires improved control over their degradation rates. Proteins may be a major contributing factor to Mg alloy degradation, but are not yet fully understood. This article reports the effects of fetal bovine serum (FBS), a physiologically relevant mixture of proteins, on Mg and Mg alloy degradation. FBS had little impact on mass loss of pure Mg during immersion degradation, regardless of whether or not a native oxide layer was present on the sample surface. FBS reduced the mass loss of Mg-Yttrium (MgY) alloy with an oxidized surface during immersion degradation, but increased the mass loss for the same alloy with a metallic surface (surface oxides were removed). FBS also influenced the mode of degradation by limiting the depth of pit formation during degradation processes on commercially pure Mg with metallic or oxidized surfaces and on MgY alloy with oxidized surfaces. The results demonstrated that serum proteins had significant interactions with Mg-based biodegradable metals, and these interactions may be modified by alloy composition and processing. Therefore, proteins should be taken into account when designing experiments to assess degradation of Mg-based implants.
Highlights
Magnesium (Mg) alloys are promising materials for biodegradable medical implants because of their desirable mechanical and biological properties[1,2,3,4]
This study focuses on investigating the complex interactions between proteins and Mg surfaces to enable the development of strategies for controlling Mg degradation in the body, which is critical for clinical translation of Mg alloys
Fetal bovine serum (FBS) was used to represent the proteins in the physiological environment, because it contains most of the proteins in blood that will come into direct contact with medical implants
Summary
Magnesium (Mg) alloys are promising materials for biodegradable medical implants because of their desirable mechanical and biological properties[1,2,3,4]. Physiological fluids are rich in aggressive ions that promote the degradation of Mg and its alloys[7,8] Proteins are another major component in physiological fluids, but their effects on Mg degradation are still poorly understood. This study focuses on investigating the complex interactions between proteins and Mg surfaces to enable the development of strategies for controlling Mg degradation in the body, which is critical for clinical translation of Mg alloys. Pure Mg and Mg-Yttrium (Y) binary alloys with either oxidized or metallic surfaces were included to represent the effects of bulk composition and surface condition on the degradation of Mg-based biomaterials in the presence or absence of proteins, enabling a comprehensive examination of the roles that serum proteins could play on the degradation of Mg-based biomaterials
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