Fabrication of Luminescent Hydroxyapatite Microspheres for Drug Loading and Release

Hydroxyapatite (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, HAP) particles have attracted a great deal of attention in biomedical fields due to their good biocompatibility, bioactivity and fairly broad applications as drug delivery, dental implant, bone cement, and etc. Thus, many researchers have made an effort to add new functionalities such as luminescence, drug delivery, and bone regeneration properties up to HAP powders by controlling their nanostructure as well as composition. In this research, the mesoporous strontium substituted HAP (Sr-HAP) microspheres were synthesized using a hydrothermal method. In this synthesis, aspartic acid monomers were utilized to form microsphere by controlling surface energy of HAP particles and Sr ions were substituted into Ca ion sites, which induced luminescence property in HAP powders. Moreover, the change in the amount of Sr substitution was found to influence the particle size, morphology, and concurrently surface area, which led to changing drug loading as well as drug release property. The amount of Sr influences the morphology, luminescent properties, particle size, surface area cell viability and drug loading property, which are investigated by SEM, TEM, XRD, FTIR, BET, XPS and in vitro test such as MTT assay and drug release test. In particular, the multifunctional Sr-HAP with molar ratios of 0.25 (Sr/(Ca+Sr)) possessed the strongest luminescent property as well as the superior drug loading and sustained release properties that were correspondent with large surface area and pore size. Our study indicates that the fabricated multifunctional Sr-HAP microspheres are quite useful for bone regeneration and drug delivery.