Mineral Trioxide Aggregate with Mussel-inspired Surface Nanolayers for Stimulating Odontogenic Differentiation of Dental Pulp Cells

Introduction: This research was intended to evaluate the feasibility of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) powder coated with polydopamine (PDA) in dental and bone tissue regeneration by investigating the hydration, physicochemical properties, and biological performance of hydrated cements. Methods: The MTA powder was well suspended in a dopamine solution buffered at a pH of 8.5 using tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane buffer and vigorously stirred for 12 hours at room temperature. The PDA-coated MTA powder was mixed with water and hydrated at 37°C with 100% relative humidity for 1 day. The setting time, mechanical strength, phase composition, surface morphology, and in vitro bioactivity of the cements as well as the proliferation and odontogenic differentiation of human dental pulp cells cultured on the cements were evaluated. Results: The setting of the MTA cements was significantly shortened without jeopardizing the mechanical properties with PDA incorporated into the cements. In addition, our results proved that PDA-coated MTA up-regulation of odontogenic-related protein of hDPCs. PDA-coated MTA induced the odontogenic differentiation of cells as indicated by an alkaline phosphate activity test and an odontogenic-related protein analysis. Conclusions: These results indicate that dopamine is an effective coating material to promote long-term human dental pulp cell culture and odontogenic differentiation on PDA-MTA substrates. This will be an important direction for future studies focused on developing new biomaterials for dental applications.