Biomimetic coating on porous alumina for tissue engineering : characterisation by cell culture and confocal microscopy

Elizabeth Kolos, Andrew J. Ruys

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this study porous alumina samples were prepared and then coated using the biomimetic coating technique using a five times Simulated Body Fluid (5.0SBF) as the growth solution. A coating was achieved after pre-treatment with concentrated acid. From elemental analysis, the coating contained calcium and phosphorous, but also sodium and chlorine. Halite was identified by XRD, a sodium chloride phase. Sintering was done to remove the halite phase. Once halite was burnt off, the calcium phosphate crystals were not covered with halite and, therefore, the apatite phases can be clearly observed. Cell culturing showed sufficient cell attachment to the less porous alumina, Sample B, that has more calcium phosphate growth, while the porous alumina, Sample A, with minimal calcium phosphate growth attained very little cell attachment. This is likely due to the contribution that calcium phosphate plays in the attachment of bone-like cells to a bioinert ceramic such as alumina. These results were repeated on both SEM and confocal microscopy analysis. Confocal microscopy was a novel characterisation approach which gave useful information and was a visual aid.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3584-3606
Number of pages23
JournalMaterials
Volume8
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Keywords

  • biomimetics
  • calcium phosphate
  • cell culture
  • confocal microscopy
  • tissue engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Biomimetic coating on porous alumina for tissue engineering : characterisation by cell culture and confocal microscopy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this