Titanium containing amorphous hydrogenated carbon films (a-C:H/Ti): surface analysis and evaluation of cellular reactions using bone marrow cell cultures in vitro

Nanocomposite and Nanostructured Carbon-based Films as Growth Substrates for Bone Cells

“…In these cells, the population densities on days 1, 3 and 7 after seeding, spreading area on day 1, formation of talin-containing focal adhesion plaques, as well as concentrations of talin and osteocalcin (per mg of protein), were comparable to the parameters obtained in cells on the reference cell culture materials, represented by microscopic glass coverslips or polystyrene dishes. In contrast to our results, the number of rat bone marrow cells in primary or lowpassaged cultures on a similar material, i.e., amorphous hydrogenated carbon with 0 to 13 atomic % of Ti, was significantly increased on Ti-containing samples compared to cells on glass (Schroeder et al, 2000). In addition, the activity of alkaline phosphatase, an important marker of osteoblastic cell differentiation, tended to be higher in the cells on films with higher Ti concentrations.…”

“…In addition, the activity of alkaline phosphatase, an important marker of osteoblastic cell differentiation, tended to be higher in the cells on films with higher Ti concentrations. This disproportion between our results and results of the study by Schroeder et al, (2000) may be explained by a higher sensitivity of primocultured or lowpassaged bone marrow cells to physical and chemical properties of the material surface in comparison with the line MG 63 used in our study, which is tumor-derived, highly passaged and well-adapted to long-term cultivation in vitro conditions. Similar higher sensitivity to the roughness, topography and other physical and chemical surface properties were observed in our earlier study in rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) in lowpassaged cultures on carbon fiber-reinforced carbon composites (CFRC) coated by a carbontitanium layer.…”

“…These results show that both polishing and carbon-titanium covering significantly improve the biocompatibility of CFRC composites in vitro, especially when these two modifications are combined (Bacakova et al, 2001b). Similar positive results were obtained in a study by Schroeder et al (2000), where the hardness and inertness of a-C:H films were also combined with the biological acceptance of titanium. Different amounts of titanium of various concentrations, ranging from 7 to 24 atomic %, were incorporated into a-C:H films by a combined radio frequency (rf) and magnetron sputtering set-up.…”

“…Even in the form of particles added to BMC cultures, a-C:H and a-C:H/Ti did not significantly stimulate the osteoclast-related TRAP activity (Bruinink et al, 2005). In addition, the Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) measurements of culture media exposed to titanium containing a-C:H films showed that no titanium was dissolved from the films after one week under cell culture conditions (the detection limit for the ICP-OES method is 0.05 mg l -1 , i.e., 1.043 μmol l -1 ; (Schroeder et al, 2000). Thus, it can be concluded that a-C:H/Ti could be a valuable coating for bone implants by supporting bone cell proliferation, reducing osteoclast-like cell activation and bone resorption, and providing chemical stability to the implant surface.…”

Highly ordered TiO2 nano-pore arrays fabricated from a novel polymethylmethacrylate/polydimethylsiloxane soft template

“…It should be stressed here that the bi-layer structure can make full use of the advantages of the two different materials [15], which PMMA can achieve a high resolution since the compression modulus is as high as 2a3 GPa and PDMS is soft enough to ensure the conformal contact between the template and the substrate during the imprinting process. Then, the as-fabricated novel PMMA/PDMS polymer soft template was employed by a nanoimprint process to fabricate highly ordered TiO 2 nano-pore arrays on substrates, which are potential in applications of photovoltaic, photo-catalysts and biomedicine [16][17][18][19]. Two kinds of AAO templates were fabricated by employing different acid electrolytes.…”