PLoS ONE (Jan 2019)

Bone marrow stromal cells interaction with titanium; Effects of composition and surface modification.

  • Murali Krishna Duvvuru,
  • Weiguo Han,
  • Prantik Roy Chowdhury,
  • Sahar Vahabzadeh,
  • Federico Sciammarella,
  • Sherine F Elsawa

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216087
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 5
p. e0216087

Abstract

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Inflammation and implant loosening are major concerns when using titanium implants for hard tissue engineering applications. Surface modification is one of the promising tools to enhance tissue-material integration in metallic implants. Here, we used anodization technique to modify the surface of commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) and titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) samples. Our results show that electrolyte composition, anodization time and voltage dictated the formation of well-organized nanotubes. Although electrolyte containing HF in water resulted in nanotube formation on Ti, the presence of NH4F and ethylene glycol was necessary for successful nanotube formation on Ti-6Al-4V. Upon examination of the interaction of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) with the modified samples, we found that Ti-6Al-4V without nanotubes induced cell proliferation and cluster of differentiation 40 ligand (CD40L) expression which facilitates B-cell activation to promote early bone healing. However, the expression of glioma associated protein 2 (GLI2), which regulates CD40L, was reduced in Ti-6Al-4V and the presence of nanotubes further reduced its expression. The inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) expression was reduced by nanotube presence on Ti. These results suggest that Ti-6Al-4V with nanotubes may be suitable implants because they have no effect on BMSC growth and inflammation.