Osteogenic commitment of mesenchymal stem cells in apatite nanorod-aligned ceramics

It is significant to process the clinically used biomaterials into a scaffold with specific nanotopographies, which can act as physical cues to regulate the osteogenic commitment of mesenchymal stem cells. In this study, hydroxyapatite (HAP) was considered as the processed objective and a facile, hydrothermal method was developed to grow the vertically oriented HAP nanorods in porous HAP ceramics. Experiments demonstrated that the formation of the HAP nanorods in porous ceramics was decided by a novel epitaxial growth mechanism and length of nanorods could be well-controlled by the growth time. Cell experiments demonstrated that such novel stereotopographical cues could regulate bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells to differentiate into the osteogenic lineage, thereby displaying that the porous ceramics with the HAP nanorods-aligned stereotopographies have a good prospect for applications in regenerative medicine of hard tissues.