Research on cell behavior related to anodized and hydrothermally treated titanium surface

Abstract In vitro cell response is believed related to the physical and chemical properties of substrate. In this study, the cell adhesion affected by mechanical stimulation from substrate was evaluated by culturing the MG-63 osteoblast-like cells on Ti plates with different chemical composition and surface topography. Three types of surface, surface with machined grooves, with pores, and with pillars, was fabricated by mechanically abraded (control), anodized (AO) and anodized following with hydrothermally treated (HYT) Ti plates, individually. Cells exhibited earlier spreading on the AO and HYT surface after 5 h culturing, resulted from chemical factor, i.e., calcium and phosphate containing on the surface. After 24 h cells completely flattened on the HYT surface but not on the AO surface; this improved cell adhesion behavior was primarily attributed to physical factor that is specific surface topography provides cell relatively large mechanical stimulation. The finite element method was used to evaluate the stress distributions which cells were suffered. For the HYT group, analyzed data indicated that cell received larger stress stimulation than control group ( P  > 0.01); therefore it can explain the fact that the superior cell adhesion resulted from the specific geometry of HYT coated-surface.