Application of Imogolite, Almino-Silicate Nanotube, as Scaffold for the Mineralization of Osteoblasts

Imogolite is a naturally occurring aluminosilicate clay mineral with a nanotube structure. In this study, synthetic imogolite nanotubes were applied to cell culture and the properties as scaffold were compared with those of a conventional culture dish and the carbon nanotube scaffold. The surface characteristics of the imogolite scaffold were drastically changed with the amount of imogolite on the dish. Human osteoblast-like cells (SaOS2) on imogolite scaffolds showed a widely spreading morphology and a high functional expression. Particularly, the scaffold with the large amount of imogolite provided the suitable environments of topography, roughness, wettability and protein adsorption ability for widely spreading morphology and differentiation of osteoblasts. Imogolite retains various positive factors as scaffolds for osteoblastic proliferation and differentiation and is expected for the application to bone tissue engineering.