Mg alloys with antitumor and anticorrosion properties for orthopedic oncology: A review from mechanisms to application strategies.

As a primary malignant bone cancer, osteosarcoma (OS) poses a great threat to human health and is still a huge challenge for clinicians. At present, surgical resection is the main treatment strategy for OS. However, surgical intervention will result in a large bone defect, and some tumor cells remaining around the excised bone tissue often lead to the recurrence and metastasis of OS. Biomedical Mg-based materials have been widely employed as orthopedic implants in bone defect reconstruction, and, especially, they can eradicate the residual OS cells due to the antitumor activities of their degradation products. Nevertheless, the fast corrosion rate of Mg alloys has greatly limited their application scope in the biomedical field, and the improvement of the corrosion resistance will impair the antitumor effects, which mainly arise from their rapid corrosion. Hence, it is vital to balance the corrosion resistance and the antitumor activities of Mg alloys. The presented review systematically discussed the potential antitumor mechanisms of three corrosion products of Mg alloys. Moreover, several strategies to simultaneously enhance the anticorrosion properties and antitumor effects of Mg alloys were also proposed.

Microfluidic Preparation of Janus Microparticles With Temperature and pH Triggered Degradation Properties.

Based on the phase separation phenomenon in micro-droplets, polymer-lipid Janus particles were prepared on a microfluidic flow focusing chip. Phase separation of droplets was caused by solvent volatilization and Janus morphology was formed under the action of interfacial tension. Because phase change from solid to liquid of the lipid hemisphere could be triggered by physiological temperature, the lipid hemisphere could be used for rapid release of drugs. While the polymer we selected was pH sensitive that the polymer hemisphere could degrade under acidic conditions, making it possible to release drugs in a specific pH environment, such as tumor tissues. Janus particles with different structures were obtained by changing the experimental conditions. To widen the application range of the particles, fatty alcohol and fatty acid-based phase change materials were also employed to prepare the particles, such as 1-tetradecanol, 1-hexadecanol and lauric acid. The melting points of these substances are higher than the physiological temperature, which can be applied in fever triggered drug release or in thermotherapy. The introduction of poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) enabled the formation of multicompartment particles with three distinct materials. With different degradation properties of each compartment, the particles generated in this work may find applications in programmed and sequential drug release triggered by multiple stimuli.

Effect of GelMA Hydrogel Coatings on Corrosion Resistance and Biocompatibility of MAO-Coated Mg Alloys.

Micro-arc oxidation (MAO) treatment is a simple and effective technique to improve the corrosion resistance for magnesium alloys. However, the presence of micro-pores and cracks on the coatings provides paths for corrosive ions to penetrate into and react with the substrate, limiting the long-term corrosion resistance. In this paper, we designed a composite coating with which GelMA hydrogel coatings with varying thicknesses were prepared on the surface of MAO-coated magnesium alloys via a dip-coating method, aiming to improve the biocorrosion resistance and biocompatibility. The surface morphology, the chemical composition of GelMA hydrogels, and the crystallographic structure of magnesium alloys were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The corrosion resistance and biocompatibility of all samples were evaluated through electrochemical and biological experiments. The results demonstrated that the addition of GelMA hydrogel could effectively seal the pores and improve the corrosion resistance and biocompatibility of MAO-coated magnesium alloys, especially for the sample with one layer of GelMA hydrogel, showing high cell proliferation rate, and its current density (Icorr) was two orders of magnitude lower than that of the MAO coating. Besides, the balance mechanism between corrosion and protection was proposed. As a result, the GelMA hydrogel coatings are beneficial to the application of MAO-coated magnesium alloys in bone tissue engineering and other fields.