Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Adhesion and Morphology on Micro- and Sub-Micropatterned Titanium

The objective of this study was to investigate the adhesion and morphology of bone marrow derived stromal cells (BMSCs) on bulk titanium (Ti) substrates with precisely-patterned surfaces consisting of groove-based gratings with groove widths ranging from 50 μm down to 0.5 μm (500 nm). Although it is well known that certain surface patterning enhances osteoblast (bone-forming cell) functions, past studies on cell-pattern interactions reported in the literature have heavily relied on surface patterning on materials with limited clinical relevance for orthopedic applications, such as polymeric substrates. The clinical need for improving osseointegration and juxtaposed bone formation around load-bearing Ti implants motivated this in vitro study. BMSCs were selected as model cells due to their important role in bone regeneration. The results showed significantly greater BMSC adhesion density and more favorable cell morphology on sub-micropatterned gratings when compared with larger micropatterned gratings and non-patterned control surfaces after both 24 hr and 72 hr cultures. We observed increasing cellular alignment and elongation with decreasing feature size. We also identified two distinctive cellular morphologies: Type I—Attached and spread cells that elongated along the pattern axes; and Type II—Superficially adhered round cells. Sub-micropatterned gratings demonstrated significantly greater Type I cell density than the non-patterned control, and lower Type II cell density than the larger micropatterned gratings. Collectively, these results suggest potential for rationally designing nano-scale surface topography on Ti implants to improve osseointegration.