Improving dental epithelial junction on dental implants with bioengineered peptides

Ivan V Panayotov; Attila G Végh; Marta Martin; Boyan Vladimirov; Christian Larroque; Csilla Gergely; Frédéric J G Cuisinier; Elias Estephan

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1165853

Improving dental epithelial junction on dental implants with bioengineered peptides

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Jun 20:11:1165853. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1165853. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ivan V Panayotov^{1

2}, Attila G Végh³, Marta Martin⁴, Boyan Vladimirov⁵, Christian Larroque⁶, Csilla Gergely⁴, Frédéric J G Cuisinier^{1

2}, Elias Estephan^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ LBN, University Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
² CSERD, CHU Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
³ Biological Research Centre, Institute of Biophysics, Eötvös Lóránd Research Network (ELKH), Szeged, Hungary.
⁴ L2C, University Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France.
⁵ Department of Maxillofacial Surgery, Medical University of Plovdiv, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
⁶ Department of Nephrology, CHU Montpellier, Hôpital Lapeyronie, IRMB, University of Montpellier, INSERM U1183, Montpellier, France.
⁷ Neuroscience Research Center, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon.

Abstract

Introduction: The functionalization of titanium (Ti) and titanium alloys (Ti6Al4V) implant surfaces via material-specific peptides influence host/biomaterial interaction. The impact of using peptides as molecular linkers between cells and implant material to improve keratinocyte adhesion is reported. Results: The metal binding peptides (MBP-1, MBP-2) SVSVGMKPSPRP and WDPPTLKRPVSP were selected via phage display and combined with laminin-5 or E-cadherin epithelial cell specific peptides (CSP-1, CSP-2) to engineer four metal-cell specific peptides (MCSPs). Single-cell force spectroscopy and cell adhesion experiments were performed to select the most promising candidate. In vivo tests using the dental implant for rats showed that the selected bi functional peptide not only enabled stable cell adhesion on the trans-gingival part of the dental implant but also arrested the unwanted apical migration of epithelial cells. Conclusion: The results demonstrated the outstanding performance of the bioengineered peptide in improving epithelial adhesion to Ti based implants and pointed towards promising new opportunities for applications in clinical practice.

Keywords: bioengineered peptide; epithelial adhesion; implants; phage display; titanium surface functionalization.