Monodispersed β-Glycerophosphate-Decorated Bioactive Glass Nanoparticles Reinforce Osteogenic Differentiation of Adipose Stem Cells and Bone Regeneration In Vivo

Design and development of highly bioactive nanoscale biomaterials with enhanced osteogenic differentiation on adipose stem cells is rather important for bone regeneration and attracting much attention. Herein, monodispersed glycerophosphate-decorated bioactive glass nanoparticles (BGN@GP) are designed and their effect is investigated on the osteogenic differentiation of adipose mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) and in vivo bone regeneration. The surface-modified BGN@GP can be efficiently taken by ADMSCs and shows negligible cytotoxicity. The in vitro results reveal that BGN@GP significantly enhances the alkaline phosphatase activity and calcium biominerialization of ADMSCs either under normal or osteoinductive medium as compared to BGNs. Further studies find that the osteogenic genes and proteins including Runx2 and Bsp in ADMSCs are significantly improved by BGN@GP even under normal culture medium. The in vivo animal experiment confirms that BGN@GP significantly promotes the new bone formation in a rat skull defect model. This study suggests that bioactive small molecule decorating is an efficient strategy to improve the osteogenesis capacity of inorganic ceramics nanomaterials.