Helical Rosettee Nanotubes for bone tissue engineering applications

The objective of the current in vitro study was to create an injectable bone-like tissue engineering scaffold based on the novel self-assembled properties of helical rosette nanotubes (HRNs) in order to effectively improve bone growth at bone defect sites. HRNs with different functional groups can present unique surface chemistries which play a crucial role in improving osteoblast (bone forming cell) adhesion and subsequent functions. Since HRNs are very soft organic nanotubes, a hydrogel can strengthen such a 3D matrix. The preliminary results of this study show that HRNs have better cytocompatibility and osteoblast (bone forming cell) adhesion when mixed with hydrogels even at a very low HRN-K1 concentration of 0.001 mg/ml.