Gold Nanoparticles Promote Proliferation of Human Periodontal Ligament Stem Cells and Have Limited Effects on Cells Differentiation

Abstract EN

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) had been widely applied in the practice and advancement of chemistry, biology, and medicine due to facility of synthesis and versatility in surface functionalization.

Recent studies had shown that AuNPs can be applied to cells, affecting cellular physiological processes such as proliferation and differentiation.

In this study, four diameters of AuNPs (20, 40, 60, and 80 nm) were cocultured with human periodontal ligament cells (hPDLCs) at six different concentrations.

The optimal size and concentration of AuNPs were selected to treat human periodontal ligament stem cells (hPDLSCs) to evaluate proliferation.

Moreover, the influence of AuNPs on multiple differentiation capacity of hPDLSCs was clarified.

The results revealed that AuNPs (60 nm, 56 μM) can effectively promote the proliferation of hPDLCs/hPDLSCs in vitro, slightly enhance osteoblastic differentiation, and have no effect on adipogenic differentiation.

In addition, the expression of COL-1, Runx2, BSP, and OCN was upregulated in the presence of AuNPs (60 nm, 56 μM).

These results indicated that AuNPs (60 nm, 56 μM) can effectively promote the proliferation of hPDLCs/hPDLSCs and have no significant effect on the differentiation of hPDLSCs.

These results provide an insight on the advantage of implementing of AuNPs on hPDLSCs culture and expose the influence of these materials on periodontal tissue engineering.