Anatase nanosurface regulates microRNAs

Titanium is the criterion standard among materials used for prosthetic devices because of its good mechanical and chemical properties. When exposed to oxygen, titanium becomes an oxide that is biocompatible and able to induce osseointegration. There are 3 allotropic forms of titanium dioxide: brookite, rutile, and anatase. Anatase can be prepared as a colloidal suspension and then used to coat surfaces. Anatase coating (AC) can potentially have specific biologic effects and specifically induce bone formation. To get more information as regards the osteogenic effect of AC, we used microRNA (miRNA) microarray techniques to investigate translation regulation in osteoblasts exposed to AC. Transduction, transcription, and translation are the 3 levels of regulation of cell activity. Recently, a new type of translation regulation has been identified: RNA interference. RNA interference is a process in which miRNA (i.e., noncoding RNAs of 19-23 nucleotides) can induce sequence-specific mRNA degradation and/or translational repression. The human genome encodes a few hundred miRNAs that can posttranscriptionally repress thousands of genes. miRNA oligonucleotide microarray provides a novel method of carrying out genome-wide miRNA profiling in human samples. By using miRNA microarrays containing 329 probes designed from human miRNA sequences, we identified in osteoblast-like cell line (MG-63) cultured with AC several miRNA whose expression had been significantly modified. The data reported constitute, to our knowledge, the first study on translation regulation in osteoblasts exposed to AC. They can be relevant to a better understanding of the molecular mechanism of bone regeneration and as a model for comparing other materials with similar clinical effects.