Osteoconductive, Osteogenic, and Antipathogenic Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation Coatings on Titanium Implants with BMP-2.

We report a one-pot plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) strategy for forming a multi-element oxide layer on the titanium surface using complex electrolytes containing Na2HPO4, Ca(OH)2, (NH2)2CO, Na2SiO3, CuSO4, and KOH compounds. For even better bone implant ingrowth, PEO coatings were additionally loaded with bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2). The samples were tested in vivo in a mouse craniotomy model. Tests for bactericidal and fungicidal activity were carried out using clinically isolated multi-drug-resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli) K261, E. coli U20, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) CSA154 bacterial strains, and Neurospora crassa (N. crassa) and Candida albicans (C. albicans) D2528/20 fungi. The PEO-Cu coating effectively inactivated both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria at low concentrations of Cu2+ ions: minimal bactericidal concentration for E. coli and N. crassa (99.9999%) and minimal inhibitory concentration (99.0%) for S. aureus were 5 ppm. For all studied bacterial and fungal strains, PEO-Cu coating completely prevented the formation of bacterial and fungal biofilms. PEO and PEO-Cu coatings demonstrated bone remodeling and moderate osteoconductivity in vivo, while BMP-2 significantly enhanced osteoconduction and osteogenesis. The obtained results are encouraging and indicate that Ti-based materials with PEO coatings loaded with BMP-2 can be widely used in customized medicine as implants for orthopedics and cranio-maxillofacial surgery.

Boron Nitride Nanoparticles with a Petal-Like Surface as Anticancer Drug-Delivery Systems.

Nanoparticles (NPs) have a great potential as nanosized drug-delivery carriers. Such systems must safely deliver the drug to the site of the tumor without drug leakage, effectively penetrate inside cancer cells, and provide intracellular drug release. Herein we developed an original and simple method aimed at the fabrication of spherical boron nitride NPs (BNNPs), 100-200 nm in diameter, with peculiar petal-like surfaces via chemical vapor deposition. Such structures were found to be able to absorb a large amount of antitumor drug-killing tumor cells. They revealed low cytotoxicity and rapid cellular uptake. BNNPs were saturated with doxorubicin (DOX) and then dispersed. The BNNPs loaded with DOX (BNNPs-DOX) were stable at neutral pH but effectively released DOX at pH 4.5-5.5. MTT assay and cell growth testing showed that the BNNPs-DOX nanocarriers had been toxic for IAR-6-1 cells. BNNPs loaded with DOX penetrated into the neoplastic IAR-6-1 cells using endocytic pathways, and then DOX released into the cytoplasm and cell nuclei and resulted in cell death.

Continual assembly of desmosomes within stable intercellular contacts of epithelial A-431 cells.

Subclones of human carcinoma-derived A-431 cell line stably producing fusion proteins consisting of the enhanced green fluorescent protein and either human desmoglein 2 (Dsg-GFP) or human plakoglobin (GFP-Pg) were used to examine the behavior of desmosomes in living cells. Immunofluorescence microscopy of the fixed cells showed that both fusion proteins, which were expressed in significantly lower levels relative to their endogenous counterparts, were efficiently recruited into desmosomes. Time-lapse confocal imaging of these cells reveals that such GFP-labeled desmosomes (GFP desmosomes) are stable structures which exhibit various dynamic and motile activities. The most notable are independent lateral mobility and fusion. Furthermore, the continual assembly of new nascent desmosomes is observed within stable contacts located at the middle of the epithelial sheet. A new GFP desmosome appears as a closely apposed group of fine patches which after a few minutes aggregate into a single structure. These three dynamic processes resulted in constant changes of desmosome distribution, numbers, and sizes. In addition, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching experiments showed that fine patches of desmosomal proteins may participate in desmosome maintenance. Such a diverse range of dynamic activities of desmosomes apparently produces flexible but tight cell-cell adhesion required for different morphogenetic events in epithelial structures.