Hydroxyapatite–polymer biocomposites for bone regeneration: A review of current trends

Abstract

Bone tissue engineering has emerged as one of the most indispensable approaches to address bone trauma in the past few decades. This approach offers an efficient and a risk-free alternative to autografts and allografts by employing a combination of biomaterials and cells to promote bone regeneration. Hydroxyapatite (HA) is a ceramic biomaterial that mimics the mineral composition of bones and teeth in vertebrates. HA, commonly produced via several synthetic routes over the years has been found to exhibit good bioactivity, biocompatibility, and osteoconductivity under both in vitro and in vivo conditions. However, the brittle nature of HA restricts its usage for load bearing applications. To address this problem, HA has been used in combination with several polymers in the form of biocomposite implants to primarily improve its mechanical properties and also enhance the implants' overall performance by simultaneously exploiting the positive effects of both HA and the polymer involved in making the biocomposite. This review article summarizes the past and recent developments in the evolution of HA-polymer biocomposite implants as an "ideal" biomaterial scaffold for bone regeneration. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 106B: 2046-2057, 2018.

Optimized production of a high‐performance hybrid biomaterial: biomineralized spider silk for bone tissue engineering

“…This trend was similar for HA deposition and reversal biomineralization. In fact, silk shrinking determines the formation of more elastic fibers while apatite is a ceramic material characterized by a brittle mechanical behavior, with low toughness and low resistance to load bearing in comparison with flexible materials …”

Blueprints for the Next Generation of Bioinspired and Biomimetic Mineralised Composites for Bone Regeneration

“…Hydroxyapatite is the predominant natural mineral found in bone. It can be easily synthesised from calcium precursors, and has been found to have excellent biocompatibility in vivo and has been used for decades in orthopaedic applications in many different forms [78,79,80,81]. Significant challenges still exist in orthopaedics to develop suitable osteogenic material to replace conventional allograft and autograft materials [78].…”

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