Incorporation of Boron in Mesoporous Bioactive Glass Nanoparticles Reduces Inflammatory Response and Delays Osteogenic Differentiation

Mesoporous bioactive glass nanoparticles (MBG) are multifunctional building blocks for tissue regeneration and nanomedicine applications. Incorporation of biologically active ions can endow MBG with additional functionalities toward promoted therapeutic effects. Here, boron is incorporated into MBG by using a sol-gel approach. The concentration of boron incorporated is controllable by tuning the amount of boron precursor. Two types of boron-doped MBG, namely 10B- and 15B-MBG (5.8 and 6.5 mol% of B2O3, respectively) are synthesized. Boron incorporation does not significantly influence the particle morphology. All synthesized particles exhibit a sphere-like shape with a size ranging from 100 to 300 nm. 10B- and 15B-MBG show large specific surface area (346 and 320 m(2) g(-1), respectively) and pore volume. Both boron-doped MBG exhibit remarkable in vitro bioactivity and noncytotoxicity. Boron incorporation is shown to reduce the inflammatory response linked to macrophages as indicated by downregulated expression of pro-inflammatory genes. However, boron incorporation delays the osteogenic differentiation in osteoblasts as indicated by the downregulated expression of pro-osteogenic genes. The results demonstrate the promising potential of using boron-doped MBG to modulate inflammatory response for bone regeneration under inflammatory conditions, as shown in this study for the first time.