Physicochemical regulation of TGF and VEGF delivery from mesoporous calcium phosphate bone substitutes.

Aim: Determination of the physicochemical parameters governing growth factors (GFs) adsorption and release from mesoporous calcium phosphate ceramics.
Materials & Methods: Six mesoporous calcium phosphate ceramics prepared by soft and hard templating were loaded with two different physiological concentrations of TGF-β1 or VEGF ₁₆₅ and their in vitro kinetics of adsorption/release were studied.
Results: This low GF loading promotes adsorption on the highest binding sites. The usually encountered detrimental burst release is thus considerably reduced for samples prepared by hard-templating method.
Conclusion: Our findings highlight that the strong affinity of GFs with the ceramic surfaces, demonstrated by a slow GFs release, is enhanced by the large surface area, confinement into mesopores of ceramics and high difference of surface charge between ceramic surfaces and GFs.