One of the issues regarding in vitro study of bone resorption is the synthesis of a bone-like biomaterial forming a thin layer onto either glass or plastic. The synthesis of a bone-like material suitable for in vitro studies can be valuable both to investigate osteoclast differentiation, that in vivo proceeds within the local microenvironment of bone and to understand how its presence triggers activation of macrophages present in situ when bone is damaged (a scenario that can occur for example in case of bone fracture). Despite the intensive studies committed to recreate synthetic bone analogues, the most used substrates for in vitro studies on bone resorption are slices of bone or dentine. Therefore morphological investigations (i.e. fluorescence analysis and phase contrast) are strongly compromised due to the thickness of the bone analogue. In the present study, with the aim to guarantee a versatile (and easy to be made) substrate, that could be suitable to study cell adhesion and morphology by epifluorescence, phase contrast and TEM, we developed a biomaterial containing a calcium phosphate salt and type I collagen. This material (made specifically for in vitro studies) forms a very thin layer that allowed to merge the morphological information derived from phase-contrast and epifluorescence observation, making possible the observation of the interface between cell and matrix. Moreover the electron microscopy evaluation of the endocytosis performed on cell differentiated could be more suitable because sample does not need the process of demineralization.
Keywords: adhesion; biomaterial; bone matrix resorption; calcium phosphate; macrophages; monocytes; osteoclasts; phagocytosis; type I collagen.