Preparation and in vitro evaluation of mesoporous hydroxyapatite coated β-TCP porous scaffolds

• A mesoporous HA coating was prepared on β-TCP scaffolds by sol-gel dip-coating.
• Cell growth on the mesoporous HA coated β-TCP scaffolds was enhanced.
• Mesoporous structure in HA coating could promote the expression of ALP and BSP.

A mesoporous hydroxyapatite (HA) coating was prepared on a β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) porous scaffold by a sol-gel dip-coating method using the block copolymer Pluronic F127 (EO106PO70EO106) as the template. For application as a bone graft, in vitro cell response and bone-related protein expression of mesoporous HA coated β-TCP scaffold were investigated, using the non-mesoporous HA coated scaffold as the control group, to evaluate the influence of the mesoporous structure on the biological properties of HA coating. It was found that the increased surface area of the mesoporous HA coating greatly affected the response of MC3T3-E1 osteoblasts and the expression of proteins. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay recorded a significantly higher expression of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and bone sialoprotein (BSP) in the mesoporous group than those in the control group (*p < 0.05) after different incubation periods. The introduction of mesopores enhanced the expression of ALP and BSP in the cells grown on the mesoporous HA coatings, on the premise of maintaining the protein expression in a sequence to ensure the correct temporo-spatial expression in osteogenesis. These results indicated that the mesoporous HA coating would provide a good environment for cell growth, suggesting that it could be used as the coating material for the surface modification of the tissue engineering scaffolds.