Fabrication of hydroxyapatite/hydrophilic graphene composites and their modulation to cell behavior toward bone reconstruction engineering

Abstract Cell adhesion was the first step of bone reconstruction. While hydroxyapatite (HA)/graphene composites had been utilized for improving the cell adhesion and bone osteogenesis, the impact of cell adhesion and HA/graphene composites, especially HA/hydrophilic graphene (HG) composites, on internal interaction force and external surface properties remained poorly understood. Here, higher stability HA/HG composites were synthesized without extra ion introduction with in situ self-assembling method. And with XRD, FT-IR, XPS and Raman analyses, the evidences of the formation of HA and the introduction of HG was clear. TEM and SEM images showed the net-like spatial structure due to the internal interaction force between HA and HG, which provided the strain stimulation for cell adhesion. Subsequently, the external surface properties of HA/HG composites demonstrated that the roughness and hydrophilic ability of HA/HG composites could be artificially regulated by increasing the content of HG. Besides, the cell proliferation rate of HA/HG composites had been investigated. Compared to the intrinsic HA, HA/5%HG possessed the higher cell proliferation rate (264.81%) and promoted the spreading and growth of MC3T3-E1 cells. Finally, the regulation mechanism between HA/HG and cell adhesion were illuminated in detail. The excellent regular behavior of HA/HG composites for cell adhesion made them promising candidates for bone reconstruction and repairing. The present work provided the reference for the design of modifiable biomaterials and offered much inspiration for the future research of bone reconstruction engineering.