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Over the recent years, mesoporous bioactive glasses (MBGs) gained interest as bone regeneration systems, due to their excellent bioactivity and ability to release therapeutic molecules. In order to improve the bone regeneration ability of MBGs, the incorporation of Sr2+ ions, due to its recognized pro-osteogenenic potential, represents a very promising strategy. In this study, MBGs based on the SiO2–CaO system and containing different percentages (2 and 4 mol %) of strontium were prepared by two synthesis methods, in the form of microspheres and nanoparticles. Sr-containing MBGs were characterized by FE-SEM, XRD and N2 adsorption/desorption analysis. The in vitro bioactivity in SBF resulted excellent. The assessment of fibroblast cell (line L929) viability showed that Sr-containing MBGs were biocompatible both in form of micro- and nanoparticles. The osteogenic response of osteoblast-like SAOS-2 cells was investigated by analysing the expression of GAPDH, COL1a1, RANKL, SPARC, OPG and ALPL genes, as cell differentiation markers. The results indicate that the incorporation of Sr into MBG is beneficial for bone regeneration as promotes a pro-osteogenic effect, paving the way to the design of advanced devices enabled by these nanocarriers also in combination with drug release, for the treatment of bone pathologies, particularly in patients with osteoporosis.

For millennia, in the different cultures all over the world, plants have been extensively used as a source of therapeutic agents with wide-ranging medicinal applications, thus becoming part of a rational clinical and pharmacological investigation over the years. As bioactive molecules, plant-derived polyphenols have been demonstrated to exert many effects on human health by acting on different biological systems, thus their therapeutic potential would represent a novel approach on which natural product-based drug discovery and development could be based in the future. Many reports have provided evidence for the benefits derived from the dietary supplementation of polyphenols in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. Polyphenols are able to protect the bone, thanks to their antioxidant properties, as well as their anti-inflammatory actions by involving diverse signaling pathways, thus leading to bone anabolic effects and decreased bone resorption. This review is meant to summarize the research works performed so far, by elucidating the molecular mechanisms of action of polyphenols in a bone regeneration context, aiming at a better understanding of a possible application in the development of medical devices for bone tissue regeneration.

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Mesoporous bioactive glass nanoparticles (MBG) are multifunctional building blocks for tissue regeneration and nanomedicine applications. Incorporation of biologically active ions can endow MBG with additional functionalities toward promoted therapeutic effects. Here, boron is incorporated into MBG by using a sol–gel approach. The concentration of boron incorporated is controllable by tuning the amount of boron precursor. Two types of boron‐doped MBG, namely 10B‐ and 15B‐MBG (5.8 and 6.5 mol% of B2O3, respectively) are synthesized. Boron incorporation does not significantly influence the particle morphology. All synthesized particles exhibit a sphere‐like shape with a size ranging from 100 to 300 nm. 10B‐ and 15B‐MBG show large specific surface area (346 and 320 m² g−1, respectively) and pore volume. Both boron‐doped MBG exhibit remarkable in vitro bioactivity and noncytotoxicity. Boron incorporation is shown to reduce the inflammatory response linked to macrophages as indicated by downregulated expression of pro‐inflammatory genes. However, boron incorporation delays the osteogenic differentiation in osteoblasts as indicated by the downregulated expression of pro‐osteogenic genes. The results demonstrate the promising potential of using boron‐doped MBG to modulate inflammatory response for bone regeneration under inflammatory conditions, as shown in this study for the first time.