Effects of combined chemical design (Cu addition) and topographical modification (SLA) of Ti-Cu/SLA for promoting osteogenic, angiogenic and antibacterial activities

Cu has been proved to possess various beneficial biological activities, while sandblasting and acid etching (SLA) is widely used to modify the commercial dental implant in order to improve osseointegration. Based on the above, a novel antimicrobial dental implant material, Ti-Cu alloy, was treated with SLA, to combine chemical design (Cu addition) and topographical modification (SLA). In this work, the effects of SLA treated Ti-Cu alloys (Ti-Cu/SLA) on osteogenesis, angiogenesis and antibacterial properties were evaluated from both in vitro and in vivo tests, and Ti/SLA and Ti-Cu (without SLA) were served as control groups. Benefiting by the combined effects of chemical design (Cu addition) and micro-submicron hybrid structures (SLA), Ti-Cu/SLA had significantly improved inhibitory effects on oral anaerobic bacteria (P. gingivalis and S. mutans) and could induce upregulation of osteogenic-related and angiogenic-related genes expression in vitro. More importantly, in vivo studies also demonstrated that Ti-Cu/SLA implants had wonderful biological performance. In the osseointegration model, Ti-Cu/SLA implant promoted osseointegration via increasing peri-implant bone formation and presenting good bone-binding, compared to Ti/SLA and Ti-Cu implants. Additionally, in the peri-implantitis model, Ti-Cu/SLA effectively resisted the bone resorption resulted from bacterial infection and meanwhile promoted osseointegration. All these results suggest that the novel multiple functional Ti-Cu/SLA implant with rapid osseointegration and bone resorption inhibition abilities has the potential application in the future dental implantation. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.