Grafting of RGD peptides to cellulose to enhance human osteoprogenitor cells adhesion and proliferation

Despite the controversy about the ideal properties of bone replacement materials, it seems that the concept of tissue engineered constructs, materials pre-colonized with autologous bone cells before implantation gathers most of favorable opinions. Cellulosic materials possess osteoconductive properties but have no intrinsic osteoinductive capacity. Then, one solution to develop bone substitutes with osteogenic properties would be to associate biomaterials with osteoprogenitors cells and the biomaterial should support cellular adhesion and induce tissue ingrowth. In a first part of this paper, we describe a new method to immobilize bioactive molecules onto cellulose. Second part of this paper is dedicated to the characterization by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and static contact angle measurements of cellulose surfaces functionalized with RGD peptides. Finally, the influence of these RGD-containing peptides on osteoprogenitor cells adhesion and proliferation is discussed. These data suggest that, by controlling the preparation of the raw material, bone substitutes with intrinsic osteoinductive property can be developed from cellulose.