Effects of Different Titanium Alloys and Nanosize Surface Patterning on Adhesion, Differentiation, and Orientation of Osteoblast-Like Cells

To test nanosize surface patterning for application as implant material, a suitable titanium composition has to be found first. Therefore we investigated the effect of surface chemistry on attachment and differentiation of osteoblast-like cells on pure titanium prepared by pulsed laser deposition (TiPLD) and different Ti alloys (Ti6Al4V, TiNb30 and TiNb13Zr13). Early attachment (30 min) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity (day 5) was found to be fastest and highest, respectively, in cells grown on TiPLD and Ti6Al4V. Osteoblasts seeded on TiPLD produced most osteopontin (day 10), whereas expression of this extracellular matrix protein was an order of magnitude lower on the TiNb30 surface. In contrast, expression of the corresponding receptor, CD44, was not influenced by surface chemistry. Thus, TiPLD was used for further experiments to explore the influence of surface nanostructures on osteoblast adhesion, differentiation and orientation. By laser-induced oxidation, we produced patterns of parallel Ti oxide lines with different widths (0.2–10 µm) and distances (2–20 and 1,000 µm), but a common height of only 12 nm. These structures did not influence ALP activity (days 5–9), but had a positive effect on cell alignment. Two days after plating, the majority of the focal contacts were placed on the oxide lines. The portion of larger focal adhesions bridging two lines was inversely related to the line distance (2–20 µm). In contrast, the portion of aligned cells did not depend on the line distance. On average, 43% of the cells orientated parallel towards the lines, whereas 34% orientated vertically. In the control pattern (1,000 µm line distance), cell distribution was completely at random. Because a significant surplus of the cells preferred a parallel alignment, the nanosize difference in height between Ti surface and oxide lines may be sufficient to orientate the cells by contact guiding. However, gradients in electrostatic potential and surface charge density at the Ti/Ti oxide interface may additionally influence focal contact formation and cell guidance.