High-activity chitosan/nano hydroxyapatite/zoledronic acid scaffolds for simultaneous tumor inhibition, bone repair and infection eradication

- Successful preparation of the novel chitosan/nano hydroxyapatite/zoledronic acid scaffolds.
- The scaffolds significantly inhibited giant cell tumor of bone by inducing tumor cells apoptosis.
- The scaffolds reduced the osteoclastic activity of tumor cells by down-regulating osteoclastic genes.
- The scaffolds showed well biocompatibility and osteoinductivity.
- The scaffolds exhibited a strong antibacterial property towards clinical pathogenic bacterium.

Implanted biomaterials combined tumor inhibition and bone repair property are urgently needed to address the huge bone destruction and the high local recurrence following primary surgery in bone tumor therapy. In this work, a high-activity chitosan/nano hydroxyapatite (CS/nHA) scaffold containing zoledronic acid (CS/nHA/Zol) was prepared with a facile method. The prepared CS/nHA/Zol scaffolds exhibited excellent tumor inhibition property towards giant cell tumor of bone (GCT) in vitro through inducing cells apoptosis by up-regulating pro-apoptosis genes expression and reducing the osteoclastic activity of tumor cells by down-regulating osteoclastic genes. Meanwhile, the prepared scaffolds possessed well biocompatibility and osteoinductivity as compared to pure CS/nHA scaffolds. Furthermore, the prepared scaffolds also presented outstanding antibacterial activity against clinical pathogenic S. aureus and E. coli. These overall findings successfully demonstrated the prepared CS/nHA/Zol scaffolds had a multifunction of tumor therapy, bone repair, and antibacterium, which provides a new approach possessed promising advantages in bone tumor therapy.