Current Stage of Marine Ceramic Grafts for 3D Bone Tissue Regeneration

Abstract

Bioceramic scaffolds are crucial in tissue engineering for bone regeneration. They usually provide hierarchical porosity, bioactivity, and mechanical support supplying osteoconductive properties and allowing for 3D cell culture. In the case of age-related diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, or other bone alterations as alveolar bone resorption or spinal fractures, functional tissue recovery usually requires the use of grafts. These bone grafts or bone void fillers are usually based on porous calcium phosphate grains which, once disposed into the bone defect, act as scaffolds by incorporating, to their own porosity, the intergranular one. Despite their routine use in traumatology and dental applications, specific graft requirements such as osteoinductivity or balanced dissolution rate are still not completely fulfilled. Marine origin bioceramics research opens the possibility to find new sources of bone grafts given the wide diversity of marine materials still largely unexplored. The interest in this field has also been urged by the limitations of synthetic or mammalian-derived grafts already in use and broadly investigated. The present review covers the current stage of major marine origin bioceramic grafts for bone tissue regeneration and their promising properties. Both products already available on the market and those in preclinical phases are included. To understand their clear contribution to the field, the main clinical requirements and the current available biological-derived ceramic grafts with their advantages and limitations have been collected.

Bone Grafts and Substitutes in Dentistry: A Review of Current Trends and Developments

“…Recent experimental studies have investigated improving the biomechanical properties of coralline HA using a variety of mechanisms, such as doping with fluorine and zirconia, which aims to improve mechanical strength and the incorporation of strontium ions allowing for enhanced stimulation of bone formation and inhibition of bone resorption. Additionally, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) coated coralline HA has recently been used in alveolar defect animal models, leading to enhanced vascularization and mineralization [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 ]. Coralline HA-based materials used in dentistry have varying pore sizes and exhibit good compressive strengths, low immunogenicity, good bone bonding capacity, however they have relatively low tensile strengths, brittleness and poor resorption ( Table 1 ) [ 3 , 79 ].…”

Biomaterials from the sea: Future building blocks for biomedical applications

“…Skeletons of coral such as Pocillopora verrucosa and Acropora formosa meet the requirement of 3D scaffolds for bone tissue engineering [ 329 ]. Two reef-building coral skeletons derived from Goniopora coral and Porites coral have been used commercially as bone graft materials [ 351 ]. Five effects of coral skeletons applied in this field include: (i) increase bioactivity via altering composition and crystal structure; ii) carry osteoinductive factors; (iii) enhance resorption properties; (iv) strengthen against compression forces in bone via converting to hydroxyapatite and fusing with hydroxyapatite nano-coatings; (v) increase bioactivity via interactions with surfaces [ 329 ] ( Fig.…”

Biomimetic Aspects of Oral and Dentofacial Regeneration

“…Marine products include collagens from jellyfish, polymers from marine diatoms, chitin from marine sponges, and hydroxyapatite and calcium phosphates from fishbone and other organisms. [ 163 , 164 ] Sensing the osteogenic potential of marine products, Pinctada’s powdered nacre was used for maxillary augmentation by Atlan et al as early as 1990, while recently, Coringa et al studied bone substitutes from oysters in mandibular defects in an animal model [ 165 ]. Advances have been made for chemical modification of marine products and their use as scaffolds for pluripotent cells’ culture [ 166 ].…”