J Mater Sci Technol ›› 2012, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (2): 109-117.

• Thin Film and Coatings • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Enhanced Performance of Osteoblasts by Silicon Incorporated Porous TiO2 Coating

Quanming Wang1), Hongjie Hu2), Yuqing Qiao2), Zhengxiang Zhang1), Junying Sun1)   

  1. 1) Orthopaedic Department, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, 188 Shizi Street, Suzhou 215006, China
    2) State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Super¯ne Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China
  • Received:2011-06-16 Revised:2011-09-21 Online:2012-02-28 Published:2012-02-24
  • Contact: Junying Sun
  • Supported by:

    Shanghai Science and Technology R&D Fund (Grant No. 0952nm04400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51071168 and 30973041), and the Innovation Fund of SIC,CAS (Grant No. Y06ZC3130G)

Abstract: Silicon (Si) incorporated porous TiO2 coating (Si-TiO2) prepared on titanium (Ti) by micro-arc oxidation (MAO) technique was demonstrated to be cytocompatible in  previous studies. In view of the potential clinical applications, a detailed in vitro study of the biological activity of Si-TiO2 coating, in terms of osteoblast (MC3T3-E1 cells) morphology, proliferation, differentiation and mineralization was performed. Immunofluorescent staining indicated that cells seeded on the Si-TiO2 coating showed improved adhesion with developing mature cytoskeletons, which contained numerous distinct and well-defined actin stress fibers in the cell membranes compared with those on the TiO2 coating and Ti plate. Results from proliferation assay showed that the proliferation rate of cells seeded on the Si-TiO2 coating was significantly faster than that on the TiO2 coating and Ti plate. Furthermore, the analysis of osteogenic gene expression demonstrated that the Si-TiO2 coating stimulated the expression of osteoblast-related genes and promoted differentiation and mineralization of MC3T3-E1 cells. In addition, the Si-TiO2 coating differentially regulated Wnt signaling pathway by up-regulating the expression of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor-related protein 5 (Lrp5), and downregulating the expression of Dickkopf-1 (Dkk1). All together, these results indicate that the investigated
titanium with Si-TiO2 coating is biocompatible and a good candidate material used as implants.

Key words: Micro-arc oxidation, Silicon, TiO2, Osteoblast, Gene expression