Electrodeposition of pronectin for titanium to augment gingival epithelium adhesion

This paper is one trial of surface modification of titanium with pronectin F+ (PN) of an artificial protein to enhance gingival adhesion. Titanium plates were electrodeposited in the PN solution to prepare PN-electrodeposited titanium plates. When PN detachment from the PN-electrodeposited titanium plates was investigated, no detachment was observed, in contrast to the case of titanium plates simply coated with PN. A cell culture experiment demonstrated that electrodeposited PN had an inherent ability to enhance the initial attachment of gingival epithelial cells. The PN-electrodeposited titanium plates were implanted between the gingival epithelium and the underlying bone tissue of rabbits to evaluate epithelial growth on the plates and their gingival adhesion. Non-treated and PN-coated titanium plates were used as controls. PN electrodeposition enhanced epithelial growth and adhesion of titanium plates to a significantly great extent compared with PN-coated plates. These findings demonstrate that PN electrodeposition is a promising method to enhance epithelium adhesion onto a titanium surface.