Ya-Ping Guo

Magnetic mesoporous carbonated hydroxyapatite microspheres with hierarchical nanostructure for drug delivery systems

Magnetic mesoporous carbonated hydroxyapatite microspheres have been fabricated hydrothermally by using CaCO(3)/Fe(3)O(4) microspheres as sacrificial templates. The high drug-loading capacity and sustained drug release property suggest that the multifunctional microspheres have great potentials for bone-implantable drug-delivery applications.

Bactericidal property and biocompatibility of gentamicin-loaded mesoporous carbonated hydroxyapatite microspheres

Implant-associated infection is a serious problem in orthopaedic surgery. One of the most effective ways is to introduce a controlled antibiotics delivery system into the bone filling materials, achieving sustained release of antibiotics in the local sites of bone defects. In the present work, mesoporous carbonated hydroxyapatite microspheres (MCHMs) loaded with gentamicin have been fabricated according to the following stages: (i) the preparation of the MCHMs by hydrothermal method using calcium carbonate microspheres as sacrificial templates, and (ii) loading gentamicin into the MCHMs. The MCHMs exhibit the 3D hierarchical nanostructures constructed by nanoplates as building blocks with mesopores and macropores, which make them have the higher drug loading efficiency of 70-75% than the conventional hydroxyapatite particles (HAPs) of 20-25%. The gentamicin-loaded MCHMs display the sustained drug release property, and the controlled release of gentamicin can minimize significantly bacterial adhesion and prevent biofilm formation against S. epidermidis. The biocompatibility tests by using human bone marrow stromal cells (hBMSCs) as cell models indicate that the gentamicin-loaded MCHMs have as excellent biocompatibility as the HAPs, and the dose of the released gentamicin from the MCHMs has no toxic effects on the hBMSCs. Hence, the gentamicin-loaded MCHMs can be served as a simple, non-toxic and controlled drug delivery system to treat bone infections.

Evolution Mechanism of Calcium Carbonate in Solution

Calcium carbonate was synthesized in a CaCl2/NaCO3 mixed solution by using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) as an additive. The thermodynamics and kinetics analyses indicate that although the driving force of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) precipitation is always less than that of calcite and vaterite precipitation, the nucleation rate of ACC is greater than that of calcite and vaterite at the initial stage of the precipitation reaction. With the increasing incubation time, vaterite and calcite particles nucleate heterogeneously by using the as-formed particles as active sites. Scanning electron microscopy images indicate that the transformation mechanism of ACC and vaterite to calcite is the dissolution-recrystallisation reaction. The presence of EDTA not only improves the stabilities of ACC and vaterite, but also leads to forming enlongated, connected rhombohedral calcite crystals after incubation 7 days in solutions. The ACC and vaterite are stabler in air than in solutions at room temperature, although the dissolution-recrystallisation reaction occurs on the surface.