Osteoporosis is a metabolic disease that affects bone tissue and is highly associated with bone fractures. Typical osteoporosis fracture treatments, such as bisphosphonates and hormone replacement, present important challenges because of their low bioavailability on the site of action. Options to overcome this issue are systems for the local release of therapeutic agents such as bioactive glasses containing therapeutic molecules and ions. These agents are released during the dissolution process, combining the drugs and ion therapeutic effects for osteoporosis treatment. Among the therapeutic agents that can be applied for bone repair are strontium (Sr) ion and phytopharmaceutical icariin, which have shown potential to promote healthy bone marrow stem cells osteogenic differentiation, increase bone formation and prevent bone loss. Submicron Sr-containing bioactive glass mesoporous spheres with sustained ion release capacity were obtained. Icariin was successfully incorporated into the particles, and the glass composition influenced the icariin incorporation efficiency and release rates. In this work, for the first time, Sr and icariin were incorporated into bioactive glass submicron mesoporous spheres and the in vitro effects of the therapeutic agents release were evaluated on the reduced osteogenic potential of rat osteoporotic bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, and results showed an improvement on the reduced differentiation potential.
In tissue engineering applications, 3D scaffolds with adequate structure and composition are required to provide durability that is compatiblewith the regeneration of native tissue. In the present study, the degradation of novel flexible 3D composite foams of chitosan (CH) combined with bioactive glass (BG)was evaluated, focusing on the role of BG as a physical crosslinker in the composites, and its effect on the degradation process. Highly porous CH/BG composite foams were obtained, and an elevated degradation temperature and lower degradation rate compared with pure chitosan were observed, probably as a result of greater intermolecular interaction between CH and BG. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) data suggest that hydrogen bonds were responsible for the physical crosslinking between CH and BG. The results confirm that CH/BG foams can combine controllable bioactivity and degradation behavior and, therefore, could be useful for tissue regeneration matrices.
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