Despite numerous advantages of using porous hydroxyapatite (HAp) scaffolds in bone regeneration, the material is limited in terms of osteoinduction. In this study, the porous scaffold made from nanosized HAp was coated with different concentrations of osteoinductive aqueous methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) solution (2.5, 5, 10, and 20%) and the corresponding MH scaffolds were referred to as MH2.5, MH5, MH10, and MH20, respectively. The results showed that all MH scaffolds resulted in burst release of MSM for up to 7 d. Cellular experiments were conducted using MC3T3-E1 preosteoblast cells, which showed no significant difference between the MH2.5 scaffold and the control with respect to the rate of cell proliferation (p > 0.05). There was no significant difference between each group at day 4 for alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, though the MH2.5 group showed higher level of activity than other groups at day 10. Calcium deposition, using alizarin red staining, showed that cell mineralization was significantly higher in the MH2.5 scaffold than that in the HAp scaffold (p < 0.0001). This study indicated that the MH2.5 scaffold has potential for both osteoinduction and osteoconduction in bone regeneration.
Keywords: hydroxyapatite; methylsulfonylmethane; osteoinduction; scaffold.