Abstract
The current therapeutic strategies for healing bone defects commonly suffer from the occurrence of bacterial contamination on the graft, resulting in nonunion in the segmental bone defects and the requirement for secondary surgery to remove or sterilize the primary graft. A membrane with enhanced anti-bacterial efficacy, mechanical strength and osteoconductivity would represent an improvement in the therapeutic strategy for guided bone regeneration. The present study aims to optimize the content of halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) and TiO2 in the polymer matrix of chitosan (CTS) with a constant amount of nano-hydroxyapatite (5%) with the objective of mimicking the mechanical and biological microenvironment of the natural bone extracellular matrix with enhanced anti-bacterial efficacy. HNTs are a low-cost alternative to MWNCTs for enhancing the mechanical properties and anti-bacterial efficacy of the composite. From the first stage of the study, it was concluded that the membranes possessed enhanced mechanical properties and optimum biological properties at 7.5% (w/w) loading of HNTs in the composite. In the second stage of this investigation, we studied the effect of the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) and TiO2 nanotubes (NTs) in small amounts to the CTS/n-HAP/HNT nanocomposite at 7.5% HNT loading, with an aim to augment the anti-bacterial efficacy and osteoconductivity of this mechanically strong membrane. The study revealed a significant enhancement in the anti-bacterial efficacy, osteoblast-like MG-63 cell proliferation and ALP expression with the addition of TiO2 NTs. The CHH-TiT membrane successfully inhibited the S. aureus and E. coli growth within 16 hours and simultaneously assisted the enhanced proliferation of osteoblast-like cells on its surface. The study supports the potential exploitation of CHH-TiT (7.5% HNT & 0.2% TiO2 NT) membranes as a template for guided bone tissue regeneration.
Highlights
Bone gra s are typically utilized in an extensive number of clinical settings to supplement bone healing and regeneration
The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of CHH I–III are shown in SI 3.1 in Electronic supplementary information (ESI),† the presence of CTS is characterized by the peaks at 2q 1⁄4 9.47 and 20.08
The proliferation of osteoblast-like MG-63 cells on CHH II was comparatively lower in comparison to CHH I (5% halloysite nanotubes (HNTs)) and CH and the antibacterial efficacy was higher at 10% HNT loading (CHH III)
Summary
Bone gra s are typically utilized in an extensive number of clinical settings to supplement bone healing and regeneration. Paper used constituents in polymer–ceramic nanocomposites are chitosan (CTS) and nano-hydroxyapatite (n-HAP, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2), due to their excellent biocompatibility with the human body.[9] Chitosan has several important properties such as antibacterial efficacy, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and cytocompatibility.[10] Chitosan is non-toxic and linear in nature and is made up of randomly dispersed b-(1/4)-linked D-glucosamine and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. They possess a high aspect ratio which helps in reinforcing a polymer by optimizing the load transfer They are reported to be thermally stable and biocompatible.[15] HNTs are non-toxic, abundant in nature and cheap to procure, so they are a viable alternative to MWCNTs for use in bone tissue engineering.[16] Alongside n-HAP, HNTs can be incorporated into the CTS polymer matrix to improve its mechanical properties to mimic the natural bone extracellular matrix. We sought to engineer and augment the osteoblast-like cell response of CTS/ n-HAP/HNT with the addition of TiO2 a er establishing the optimised amount of HNT in the composite
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