Biomineralization of marine-patterned C-scaffolds

Abstract

IntroductionNowadays, the design of 3D scaffolds for the replacement, repair and regeneration of the different human tissues is one of the main pillars and challenges of regenerative medicine. In the case of bone tissue, it is important that its tissue engineering scaffolds present a determined surface chemistry, hierarchical porosity and surface topography that will promote cell attachment and differentiation.One of the most successful strategies for improving the biocompatibility of the device is to provide it with a calcium phosphate coating resembling, thus, the mineral part of the human bone tissue (hydroxyapatite), which promotes an osteogenic, osteoconductive or osteoinductive activity. However, these bioactive ceramic coatings have also been cited as an efficient strategy to overcome the fibrous tissue encapsulation, a common problem for synthetic metallic and polymeric implants in vivo. 1To produce bioceramic coatings, different techniques such as plasma spray, pulsed laser deposition or electron beam evaporation have been intensively studied, but, trying to follow the main postulates that regenerative medicine promotes, the deposition of this calcium phosphate by means of a biomimetic process seems to be the main challenge. Thus, the biomimetic method was first developed by Kokubo 2 with the purpose of obtaining a calcium phosphate layer by using a simple process based on the immersion of the material (metal, polymer or ceramic) in a simulated body fluid (SBF) with ion concentrations similar to human blood plasma obtaining a bonelike apatite layer on various types of organic polymer and titanium substrates. However, traditional SBF solutions require of lengthy incubation times, typically more than 7 d, to get obtained a uniform calcium phosphate coating. Recent efforts to shorten the time needed for coating have focused on increasing ionic concentrations. Although still a matter of some controversy, the ability of implants to form a calcium phosphate in SBF is object of much interest, and it could give important information on in vivo behavior.3,4 The use of Dulbecco's phosphate-buffered saline solutions (DPBS; Sigma-Aldrich, Schnelldorf, Germany) instead of SBF has also been investigated as a biomimetic fluid. Results have been obtained

Editorial

“…Cosme Rodríguez-Valencia et al 4 applied a biomimetic approach to cover marine-derived carbon scaffolds with a thin calcium phosphate layer. The biomimetic coating on the natural scaffold pattern was characterised, and the biological response with respect to pre-osteoblasts (MC3T3-E1) was investigated.…”