Coating the surface of an implant or a medical device with noble metals designed to have a surface-nanostructure may reduce the risk of rejection. The researchers can now explain why: the nanostructure fools the innate immune system.
The results are presented in the International Journal of Nanomedicine and the project is a collaboration between the BIOMATCELL VINN Excellence Centre of Biomaterials and Cell Therapy in Gothenburg, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in Borås and Bactiguard AB in Stockholm.
“Activation of the body’s innate immune system is one of the most common reasons for why an implant is being rejected,” the researchers explains. “We can now show a hypothesis why the body more easily integrates biomaterials with a nanostructured surface than a smooth one.”
The researchers used a unique method to produce nanostructures and the result is similar to a cobbled street in miniature.
Coating implants or medical devices with this cobbled surface, reduces the activation of important parts of the innate immune system. This is because several of the proteins involved are of a similar size and shape to these nanosized cobbles, and do not change in appearance when they land on the surface. This gives the body a greater ability to integrate foreign objects such as implants, pacemakers and blood contacting devices into its own tissue, as well as reducing the risk of local inflammation.
Research regarding the body’s innate immune system was rewarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2011.
Contact:
Mattias Ohrlander, Senior Scientific Advisor, Bactiguard
Tel: +46 8 440 58 80