Thanks to new research using humble chicken eggshells to create a new bioactive material for safe and effective bone grafting, we may soon be donating unwanted eggshells to science. yeah.
Bone grafting is a common method of filling voids and gaps in bone caused by trauma or surgery, such as tumor removal. Worldwide, approximately 2 million bone grafts are performed each year in orthopedic, neurosurgery, plastic and dental surgery.
Bone graft materials come from a variety of sources. Autografts use the recipient’s bone. Allografts use donor bone that is harvested during a surgical procedure, such as a hip replacement, and sanitized for use in another person. Xenogenic bones are usually derived from non-living bones of another species, such as cattle or pigs, and are treated at high temperatures to avoid immune rejection and contamination.
Autologous and allografts remain the gold standard due to their ability to generate new bone. Xenografts are a viable alternative, but their reliance on the availability of animal-derived materials poses high environmental costs and ethical concerns. To come up with a safe and effective xenograft material, researchers turned to the frugal and abundant chicken egg.
Researchers have developed a new dissolution precipitation method to produce amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) particles from chicken eggshells. ACP is essential for the formation of mineralized bone, that is, hard and strong bone, and was previously used as a bone substitute because of its composition.
“Eggshells are an ideal source for synthesizing bone graft materials because they are rich in calcium and phosphorus components,” said Qianli Ma, the study’s lead author. “Additionally, eggshells also contain several trace elements associated with bone regeneration, such as magnesium and strontium.”
To create the “eggshell ACP,” the researchers first heated the eggshell to 1,652°F (900°C) for one hour to break down organic matter and convert calcium carbonate to calcium oxide. Calcium oxide was added to distilled water to form a white suspension. Phosphoric acid was stirred into a suspension and the ACP precipitate was filtered, washed with distilled water and then immersed in liquid nitrogen.
In another initial study, researchers embedded ACP particles into 3D spheroids to better analyze the osteogenic (osteogenic) activity of the particles through interactions between the host bone tissue and the implant material.
they found it in vitro Eggshell ACP particles interacted realistically with osteoblasts, the cells that form bone. Moreover, they were non-toxic, immunocompatible and effective in promoting bone regeneration.
“This technology promises to create a limitless supply of bioactive and sustainable bone graft materials while reducing environmental pollution,” said Håvard Jostein Haugen, corresponding author of the study. “The osteoblastic spheroids constructed in this study reflected the three-dimensional interactions between cells and biomaterials, providing a more practical model for biomaterials research.”
The researchers hope their findings will spur more research into utilizing regular food waste as a biomaterial.
The study was published in a journal smart materials in medicine.
Source: KeAI Communications Co Ltd via EurekAlert!
