Usage of polymer brushes as substrates of bone cells

Abstract

Implant medical research and tissue engineering both target the design of novel biomaterials for the improvement of human health and clinical applications. In order to develop improved surface coatings for hard tissue (bone) replacement materials and implant devices, we are developing micropatterned coatings consisting of polymer brushes. These are used as organic templates for the mineralization of calcium phosphate in order to improve adhesion of bone cells. First, we give a short account of the current state-of-the-art in this particular field of biomaterial development, while in the second part the preliminary results of cell culture experiments are presented, in which the biocompatibility of polymer brushes are tested on human mesenchymal stem cells.

Anionic Polymer Brushes for Biomimetic Calcium Phosphate Mineralization—A Surface with Application Potential in Biomaterials

“…As stated in the introduction, understanding surface-controlled mineralization and being able to tailor surfaces are among the key challenges in advanced biomaterials design [9,10,11,48,49,50,51,52,53]. The current report contributes to this development and introduces a set of new surfaces that may find application in biomaterials surface development, but also enable the investigation of surface chemistry on CP deposition.…”

“…As a result, there is a need for tailor-made (model) surfaces that enable (i) the investigation of mineral formation and dissolution; (ii) the behavior of these surfaces in vitro and (iii) in vivo. Polymer brushes are one strategy for investigating these phenomena and processes [9,10,11,12,13,14].…”

“…Importantly, PSPM chains are highly negatively charged over a much broader pH range than previous examples of polymer surfaces [5]. Indeed, several studies [10,12,16] show that surfaces carrying a large number of sulfonate groups lead to metal ion enrichment and subsequent precipitation of a variety of minerals.…”

Selective Adsorption of Functionalized Nanoparticles to Patterned Polymer Brush Surfaces and Its Probing with an Optical Trap

“…Additionally, if the PSBMA brushes swell in good solvents, such as water and phosphate‐buffered saline (PBS), they can reach a thickness in the range of the phosphonate nanoparticles’ diameter (up to 120 nm in water) 22–24. The nanoparticles could, therefore, be entrapped in the grooves by the swollen PSBMA brush walls surrounding the 2.5 to 160 μm‐wide grooves.…”

Ordered and disordered proteins as nanomaterial building blocks

“…The primary structure is defined as the linear sequence of amino acids, secondary structure (e.g., α ‐helices, β ‐sheets) is formed as a result of hydrogen bonding between peptide backbone atoms, and tertiary structure refers to the spatial association of specific secondary structural elements. Many biomaterials have been developed for tissue engineering and drug‐delivery applications that harness folded proteins or protein domains to perform a variety of functions, such as conferring elasticity,30 promoting cross‐linking,23 facilitating material degradation,23 and fostering biomineralization 31. In some cases, these materials have included peptides or proteins that undergo conformational changes in response to environmental stimuli, such as pH‐induced helix‐coil transitions that give rise to macroscale sol–gel transitions32,33 or large‐scale conformational changes triggered by ligand binding 34,35…”