A hydrogel with improved interfacial compatibility was formed to promote osteogenesis by establishing electrostatic bonds.

Guided tissue regeneration (GTR) is a promising treatment for periodontal tissue defects, which generally uses a membrane to build a mechanical barrier from the gingival epithelium and hold space for the periodontal regeneration especially the tooth-supporting bone. However, existing membranes possess insufficient mechanical properties and limited bioactivity for periodontal bone regenerate. Herein, fish collagen and polyvinyl alcohol (Col/PVA) dual-layer membrane were developed via a combined freezing/thawing and layer coating method. This dual-layer membrane had a clear but contact boundary line between collagen and PVA layers, which were both hydrophilic. The dual membrane had an elongation at break of 193 ± 27% and would undergo an in vitro degradation duration of more than 17 days. Further cell experiments showed that compared with the PVA layer, the collagen layer not only presented good cytocompatibility with rat bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), but also promoted the osteogenic genes (RUNX2, ALP, OCN, and COL1) and protein (ALP) expression of BMSCs. Hence, the currently developed dual-layer membranes could be used as a stable barrier with a stable degradation rate and selectively favor the bone tissue to repopulate the periodontal defect. The membranes could meet the challenges encountered by GTR for superior defect repair, demonstrating great potential in clinical applications.

Background: While large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Google Bard have shown significant promise in various fields, their broader impact on enhancing patient health care access and quality, particularly in specialized domains such as oral health, requires comprehensive evaluation. Objective: This study aims to assess the effectiveness of Google Bard, ChatGPT-3.5, and ChatGPT-4 in offering recommendations for common oral health issues, benchmarked against responses from human dental experts. Methods: This comparative analysis used 40 questions derived from patient surveys on prevalent oral diseases, which were executed in a simulated clinical environment. Responses, obtained from both human experts and LLMs, were subject to a blinded evaluation process by experienced dentists and lay users, focusing on readability, appropriateness, harmlessness, comprehensiveness, intent capture, and helpfulness. Additionally, the stability of artificial intelligence responses was also assessed by submitting each question 3 times under consistent conditions. Results: Google Bard excelled in readability but lagged in appropriateness when compared to human experts (mean 8.51, SD 0.37 vs mean 9.60, SD 0.33; P=.03). ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4, however, performed comparably with human experts in terms of appropriateness (mean 8.96, SD 0.35 and mean 9.34, SD 0.47, respectively), with ChatGPT-4 demonstrating the highest stability and reliability. Furthermore, all 3 LLMs received superior harmlessness scores comparable to human experts, with lay users finding minimal differences in helpfulness and intent capture between the artificial intelligence models and human responses. Conclusions: LLMs, particularly ChatGPT-4, show potential in oral health care, providing patient-centric information for enhancing patient education and clinical care. The observed performance variations underscore the need for ongoing refinement and ethical considerations in health care settings. Future research focuses on developing strategies for the safe integration of LLMs in health care settings.

Excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) around titanium implants under diabetic conditions causes persistent inflammation, leading to poor osseointegration and even implant failure. Surface modification is an effective way to promote ROS clearance, alleviate inflammation, and stimulate bone formation. In this study, a multifunctional coating is fabricated by introducing cerium (Ce)-containing mesoporous bioactive glass nanoparticles (Ce-MBGNs) onto the titanium surface via an electrophoretic deposition method. The incorporation of Ce-MBGNs remarkably improves surface hydrophilicity by increasing the surface areas. The bioactive ions are appropriately released, thereby promoting mesenchymal stem cell proliferation and differentiation under diabetic conditions. The conversion between Ce(III) and Ce(IV) endows Ce-MBGNs coating with antioxidative nanoenzymes properties to scavenge diabetes-induced ROS, resulting in macrophage polarization towards the anti-inflammatory phenotype. The therapeutic effect of Ce-MBGNs-modified titanium implants is also verified in diabetic rats by inhibiting inflammatory responses and accelerating early osseointegration. Taken together, the findings reveal that the ROS-scavenging and immunomodulation activity of the Ce-MBGNs coating contributes to enhanced osseointegration, and provides a novel implant surface for diabetic patients.

With the rapid development of implantable biomaterials, the rising risk of bacterial infections has drawn widespread concern. Due to the high recurrence rate of bacterial infections and the issue of antibiotic resistance, the common treatments of peri-implant infections cannot meet the demand. In this context, stimuli-responsive biomaterials have attracted attention because of their great potential to spontaneously modulate the drug releasing rate. Numerous smart bacteria-responsive drug delivery systems (DDSs) have, therefore, been designed to temporally and spatially release antibacterial agents from the implants in an autonomous manner at the infected sites. In this review, we summarized recent advances in bacteria-responsive DDSs used for combating bacterial infections, mainly according to the different trigger modes, including physical stimuli-responsive, virulence-factor-responsive, host-immune-response responsive and their combinations. It is believed that the smart bacteria-responsive DDSs will become the next generation of mainstream antibacterial therapies.

Local immunoinflammatory events instruct skeletal stem cells (SSCs) to repair/regenerate bone after injury, but mechanisms are incompletely understood. We hypothesized that specialized Tregs are necessary for bone repair and interact directly with SSCs through organ-specific messages. Both in human patients with bone fracture and a mouse model of bone injury, we identified a bone injury–responding Treg subpopulation with bone-repair capacity marked by CCR8. Local production of CCL1 induced a massive migration of CCR8 ⁺ Tregs from periphery to the injury site. Depending on secretion of progranulin (PGRN), a protein encoded by the granulin ( Grn ) gene, CCR8 ⁺ Tregs supported the accumulation and osteogenic differentiation of SSCs and thereby bone repair. Mechanistically, we revealed that CCL1 enhanced expression levels of basic leucine zipper ATF-like transcription factor (BATF) in CCR8 ⁺ Tregs, which bound to the Grn promoter and increased Grn translational output and then PGRN secretion. Together, our work provides a new perspective in osteoimmunology and highlights possible ways of manipulating Treg signaling to enhance bone repair and regeneration.