Royal Society of Chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry B: Materials for biology and medicine, 35(3), p. 7079-7089
DOI: 10.1039/c5tb01032b
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Biomimetic materials have been gaining increasing importance for use as bone biomaterials, because they may provide regenerative alternatives for the use of autologous tissues for bone regeneration. We demon-strate a promising alternative for the use of biomimetic materials based on a biodegradable PEG hydrogel loaded with vaterite nanoparticles as mineral storage. Vaterite, the least stable CaCO3 polymorph, is stable enough to ensure the presence of a potential ion buffer for bone regeneration, but still has sufficient reactivity for the transformation from CaCO3 to hydroxyapatite (HA). A combination of powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), electron microscopy, and Fourier-transform (FT-IR) infrared and Raman spectroscopy showed the transformation of vaterite nanoparticles incorporated in a PEG-acetal-DMA hydrogel to hydroxycarbonate apatite (HCA) crystals upon incubation in simulated body fluid at human body temperature within several hours. The transformation in the PEG-acetal-DMA hydrogel scaffold in simulated body fluid or phosphate saline buffer proceeded significantly faster than for free vaterite. The vaterite-loaded hydrogels were free of endotoxin, which may have prospects for future applications in the treatment of bone defects and bone de-generative diseases.