Bone tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary field which is emerged for the development of viable substitutes that restore and maintain the function of human bone tissues. The success of bone tissue engineering depends on designing of the scaffolds. The polymer-based composite scaffolds containing micro-and nano-structures could provide a platform influencing osteoblastic cell adhesion, spreading, proliferation, and differentiation. Osteoblasts may adhere strongly to the nano-structures than micro-structures in the scaffolds due to the large surface area, better osteointegrative property and mechanical reliability etc. In this review we are focusing the factors such as pore size, surface topography and roughness, protein adsorption and wettability of nano-structures and their interaction with cell surface integrins molecules. A better understanding of the interactions of nano-structures with osteoblastic cells will have potential applications in the regeneration of bone.

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The bone implants used in tissue repair are susceptible to infections caused by staphylococci, specifically Staphylococcus aureus. Hence, the development of better biological materials that provide antimicrobial activity in bone tissue engineering is required. The nanoparticles of hydroxyapatite (nHAp) and nHAp dopped with Zn (nHAp-Zn) were prepared by the wet chemical method and the ion exchange method, respectively. They were characterized using SEM, AFM, FTIR and XRD. The antibacterial activity of nHAp and nHAp-Zn was determined with Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial strains. The results indicated that nHAp alone was acting as an inert matrix and when substituted with Zn, it showed better antibacterial activity. The nHAp-Zn was found to be non-toxic to osteoprogenitor cells. Thus, due to the antimicrobial property of nHAp-Zn nanoparticles, we suggest that they would have potential applications towards bone tissue engineering.