Functionalized mesoporous bioactive glass scaffolds for enhanced bone tissue regeneration

Mesoporous bioactive glass (MBG), which possesses excellent bioactivity, biocompatibility and osteoconductivity, has played an important role in bone tissue regeneration. However, it is difficult to prepare MBG scaffolds with high compressive strength for applications in bone regeneration; this difficulty has greatly hindered its development and use. To solve this problem, a simple powder processing technique has been successfully developed to fabricate a novel type of MBG scaffold (MBGS). Furthermore, amino or carboxylic groups could be successfully grafted onto MBGSs (denoted as N-MBGS and C-MBGS, respectively) through a post-grafting process. It was revealed that both MBGS and the functionalized MBGSs could significantly promote the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of bMSCs. Due to its positively charged surface, N-MBGS presented the highest in vitro osteogenic capability of the three samples. Moreover, in vivo testing results demonstrated that N-MBGS could promote higher levels of bone regeneration compared with MBGS and C-MBGS. In addition to its surface characteristics, it is believed that the decreased degradation rate of N-MBGS plays a vital role in promoting bone regeneration. These findings indicate that MBGSs are promising materials with potential practical applications in bone regeneration, which can be successfully fabricated by combining a powder processing technique and post-grafting process.