Breast cancer frequently metastasizes to bone, where it leads to secondary tumor growth, osteolytic bone degradation, and poor clinical prognosis. Hydroxyapatite Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2 (HA), a mineral closely related to the inorganic component of bone, may be implicated in these processes. However, it is currently unclear how the nanoscale materials properties of bone mineral, such as particle size and crystallinity, which change as a result of osteolytic bone remodeling, affect metastatic breast cancer. We have developed a two-step hydrothermal synthesis method to obtain HA nanoparticles with narrow size distributions and varying crystallinity. These nanoparticles were incorporated into gas-foamed/particulate leached poly(lactide-co-glycolide) scaffolds, which were seeded with metastatic breast cancer cells to create mineral-containing scaffolds for the study of breast cancer bone metastasis. Our results suggest that smaller, poorly-crystalline HA nanoparticles promote greater adsorption of adhesive serum proteins and enhance breast tumor cell adhesion and growth relative to larger, more crystalline nanoparticles. Conversely, the larger, more crystalline HA nanoparticles stimulate enhanced expression of the osteolytic factor interleukin-8 (IL-8). Our data suggest an important role for nanoscale HA properties in the vicious cycle of bone metastasis and indicate that mineral-containing tumor models may be excellent tools to study cancer biology and to define design parameters for non-tumorigenic mineral-containing or mineralized matrices for bone regeneration.

Hydroxyapatite (HAP, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) nanoparticles with controlled materials properties have been synthesized through a two-step hydrothermal aging method to investigate fibronectin (Fn) adsorption. Two distinct populations of HAP nanoparticles have been generated: HAP1 particles had smaller size, plate-like shape, lower crystallinity, and more negative ζ potential than HAP2 particles. We then developed two-dimensional platforms containing HAP and Fn and analyzed both the amount and the conformation of Fn via Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) at various HAP concentrations. Our FRET analysis reveals that larger amounts of more compact Fn molecules were adsorbed onto HAP1 than onto HAP2 particles. Additionally, our data show that the amount of compact Fn adsorbed increased with increasing HAP concentration due to the formation of nanoparticle agglomerates. We propose that both the surface chemistry of single nanoparticles and the size and morphology of HAP agglomerates play significant roles in the interaction of Fn with HAP. Collectively, our findings suggest that the HAP-induced conformational changes of Fn, a critical mechanotransducer protein involved in the communication of cells with their environment, will ultimately affect downstream cellular behaviors. These results have important implications for our understanding of organic–inorganic interactions in physiological and pathological biomineralization processes such as HAP-related inflammation.

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Hand-assisted laparoscopic autoaugmentation gastrocystoplasty can be performed successfully in dogs. This operation may offer a superior alternative to standard bladder autoaugmentation procedures in children suffering from congenital bladder disorders.