The purpose of this study was to evaluate the response of osteoblasts to calcium phosphate with different surface modification, and to evaluate the osteoinductive capabilities of these biomaterials. 60HA/40α-TCP ceramics sintered at 1250oC was applied in this study. A ceramic cylinder with F5mm×8mm and slice with F10mm×1mm were prepared respectively. One third of the ceramics was used to form bone-like apatite (BLA), and the surface of another one third was modified with collagen. Osteoblasts (1×106/ml) were co-cultured with the three kinds of thin slices for 12h, 24h and 48h. SEM observation was applied to evaluate whether the surface modification and BLA formation could affect the attachment and proliferation of osteoblast in vitro. The three kinds of cylinder samples were implanted in dog muscle to evaluate their differences in osteoinduction. Cells grew in multi-layers and attached to the surface and proliferated well in the collagen and HA/TCP group. In the untreated and BLA precipitated groups, cells did not attach to the surface well. Osteoinduction was good in the BLA precipitated group and the amount of bone formed was higher; in the untreated group and collagen-treated group, no bone formation was observed in the tested period. This result indicated that the scaffold used in cell-materials composites in vitro and that in osteoinductive material based tissue engineering in vivo was not same.
