Osteogenic activity of silver-loaded coral hydroxyapatite and its investigation in vivo

In this study, the scaffolds based on mineralized silver-loaded coral hydroxyapatites (SLCHAs) were developed for bone regeneration in the radius of rabbit with a 15-mm infective segmental defect model for the first time. The SLCHAs were achieved by surface adsorption and ion-exchange reaction between Ca(2+) of coral hydroxyapatite (CHA) and Ag(+) of silver nitrate with different concentration at room temperature. Release experiment in vitro, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer were applied to exhibit that the scaffold showed some features of natural bone both in main component and hierarchical microstructure. The three-dimensional porous scaffold materials imitate the microstructure of cancellous bone. Mouse embryonic pre-osteoblast cells (MC3T3-E1) were used to investigate the cytocompatibility of SLCHAs, CHA and pure coral. Cell activity were studied with alkaline phosphataseenzyme assay after 2, 4, 6 days of incubation. It was no statistically significant differences in cell activity on the scaffolds of Ag(+)(13.6 μg/mL)/CHA, Ag(+)(1.7 μg/mL)/CHA, CHA and pure coral. The results indicated that the lower silver concentration has little effect on cell activity. In the implantation test, the infective segmental defect repaired with SLCHAs was healed up after 10 weeks after surgery, and the implanted composites were almost substituted by new bone tissue, which were very comparable with the scaffold based on mineralized CHA. It could be concluded that the SLCHAs contained with appropriate silver ionic content could act as biocidal agents and maintain the advantages of mineralized CHA or coral, while avoiding potential bacteria-dangers and toxical heavy-metal reaction. All the above results showed that the SLCHAs with anti-infective would be as a promising scaffold material, which whould be widely applied into the clinical for bone regeneration.