Studies of bone cell adhesion and proliferation on ion-implanted titanium discs

Abstract

Argon ions were implanted on titanium discs to study their effect on bone cell adhesion and proliferation. Polished titanium discs were prepared and implanted with argon ions with different doses. Afterwards, the samples were sterilised using ultraviolet light, inoculated with human bone cells and incubated. Once fixed and rinsed, image analysis has been used to quantify the number of cells attached to the titanium discs. Cell proliferation tests were also conducted after a period of 120 hours. Cell adhesion was seen to be higher with ion-implanted surfaces. Scanning electron microscopy analysis has shown that the attached cells spread more on ion-implanted surfaces. The numbers of cells attached were seen to be higher on implanted surfaces; they tend to occupy wider areas with healthier cells. The results of the present investigation is indicative of the fact that ion-implanted titanium surfaces offer better cell binding affinity compared with untreated titanium surfaces. Ion-implanted surfaces appear to have a higher cell attachment by 33%. In the cell proliferation tests, the osteoblast growth in implanted samples is greater than in untreated samples at the end of the testing time of 120 hours.

Keywords:

• Extracellular matrix
• ion implantation
• osteoblast
• proliferation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

P S Sreejith

Dr PS Sreejith’s area of specialisation is in Manufacturing Engineering. He was awarded his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. He has worked in various universities, such as Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Multimedia University, Malaysia; Queensland University of Technology, Australia; and King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia. Presently he is working at Cochin University of Science and Technology as Principal School of Engineering. He has more than 100 research papers in various international journals and conference proceedings, which are widely referred

P K D V Yarlagadda

Prof Prasad Yarlagadda is currently the Director of Smart Systems Research and Professor in the School of Engineering Systems, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane. He possesses over 30 years of experience in the area of materials, manufacturing and infomechatronics.