Manufacturing of Halloysite Nanotubes/Barium Titanate Nanoparticles Reinforced Functional Hydrogels for Bone Tissue Repair

Bone defects caused by fractures, diseases, hereditary deformations, and surgical reconstructions are serious clinical challenges, wherein the self-healing of large bone defects is not able to bridge the gap and requires a biomaterial-based scaffold to facilitate bone repair under a native-like three-dimensional (3D) microenvironment. However, the design and fabrication of an appropriate scaffold is a great challenge for efficient cellular responses to develop new bone tissue. Therefore, the search for developing a suitable scaffold for bone repair is still unaccomplished. Herein, hydrogel as a 3D polymeric network provides the most suitable dynamic microenvironment to repair damaged bone tissues. The efficiency of hydrogels in repairing bone tissue is limited due to their low mechanical properties and bioactivity, which presents challenges in designing effective hydrogels with robust mechanical attributes and acceptable bioactivity. In our study, we synthesized functional hybrid hydrogels by incorporating halloysite nanotubes and barium titanate nanoparticles, and as-obtained hydrogels showed promising porous and surface characteristics (i.e. microstructure and roughness), improved mechanical properties, enhanced<i> in-vitro</i> bioactivity, and satisfactory cytocompatibility (<i>in-vitro</i>).