Enhanced biological behavior and antibacterial property of WS2 nanosheets modified mesoporous bioactive glass nanospheres for bone tissue engineering

Mesoporous bioactive glasses (MBGs) are deemed as bone implants for inducing osteoblast differentiation and preventing bone resorption, however, the damage of peri-implantitis on soft and bone tissue has been generally overlooked. To overcome the significant antibacterial deficiency of MBGs, the tungsten disulfide (WS2) nanosheets as near-infrared (NIR) photothermal agents have been integrated with MBG nanospheres to develop novel multifunctional WS2/MBG nanocomposites in this work. The results show that all the WS2/MBG nanocomposites exhibit mesoporous structures with larger specific surface area (up to 475.35 m2/g)) and more negative surface zeta potential (−17.4 mV) than MBG. Notably, the WS2/MBG nanocomposites can effectively promote the apatite forming ability, the proliferation and viability of MC3T3-E1 cells, as well as up-regulate the osteogenic related genes expression of Alp, Runx2, Col1a1, Opn and Bglap. Moreover, it is highlighted that the WS2/MBG nanocomposites exhibit excellent antibacterial efficacy toward S. aureus under NIR laser irradiation, with the antibacterial rate up to 96.13%. These results will offer an appealing strategy to develop multifunctional WS2/MBG nanocomposites with enhanced biological activity and additional antibacterial property for bone tissue engineering.