Engineered Zinc Titanate Coatings on the Titanium Surface with Enhanced Antitumor Properties and Biocompatibility

Surgical treatment of osteosarcoma is usually difficult to radically eliminate cancer cells, and it will concomitantly result in bone defects with varied sizes. To prevent tumor recurrence and reconstruction of the bone defect, there is a pressing need to develop suitable implants that have anticancer capability while promoting the regeneration of bone tissues. Here, we first report the design and fabrication of titanium-based implants engineered with a series of alveolate double-layered zinc titanate nanogridding coatings (NG-Zn0.01, NG-Zn0.05, NG-Zn0.10, NG-Zn0.15, and NG-Zn0.20). Biological assays in vitro indicate that the NG-Zn samples with long-lasting Zn ion release are able to efficiently inhibit the proliferation of osteosarcoma cells (MG63) in a dose-dependent manner, trigger cell cycle arrest, and induce cell apoptosis by the activation of the mitochondria pathway. More importantly, the optimized NG-Zn0.15 implant shows significant tumor inhibitory and proapoptotic abilities based on the assessment using a nude mouse osteosarcoma xenograft model. Additionally, the zinc titanate coatings with the nanogridding structure and appropriate Zn content exhibit favorable effects on osteoblast (MC3T3-E1) growth in vitro. It is verified that the NG-Zn0.15 implant is the optimal one with high efficiency against tumors and good biocompatibility, and it has promising potential in the surgical treatment of osteosarcoma.