Novel dental nanocomposites: fabrication and investigation of their physicochemical, mechanical and biological properties

The aim of this study was to investigate biological, physicochemical and mechanical characteristics of a series of novel dental restorative nanocomposites that comprise dendritic methacrylate end-caped monomers, triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA; as diluting monomer) and modified silica nanoparticles (\(\hbox {M-SiO}_{2}\); as inorganic filler). The cytotoxicity effects of the monomers and fabricated nanocomposites were examined against NIH3T3 cells (the standard fibroblast cell line) through MTT and trypan blue cell viability tests, respectively. The antibacterial activities of the monomers were evaluated against Lactobacillus plantarum by standard agar disk diffusion approach. The mechanical properties (flexural strength (FS) and compressive strength (CS)) as well as some physicochemical characteristics such as water sorption (WS), sol fraction (SF) and double bond conversion (DC) were also investigated, and compared with corresponding characteristics of 3M Filtek Z250 as a reference. Thus, the fabricated nanocomposites have potential as dental restorative materials mainly due to their suitable biological, physicochemical and mechanical properties.