Graphene modified titanium alloy promote the adhesion, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells

Abstract

We studied the effects of graphene coating on improving the biological activity of a titanium alloy (Ti₆Al₄V) widely used in hip and knee joint replacements. The experiments included immunofluorescence staining for observing cellular adhesion, Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) for evaluating cellular proliferation and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for detecting the differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells on different scaffolds. The results showed that G-Ti₆Al₄V exhibited a higher mean integrated optical density (IOD) for vinculin and resulted in a higher cell proliferation rate and higher osteoblast-specific gene transcription levels. In summary, graphene could be used as a new nanocoating material for Ti₆Al₄V scaffolds to enhance their surface bioactivity.

Keywords: Bioactivity; Graphene; Surface modification; Titanium alloy.