Effects of tricalcium phosphate bone graft materials on primary cultures of osteoblast cells in vitro

: The aim of this study was to evaluate β‐tricalcium phosphate (β‐TCP Cerasorb® Curasan‐Germany) graft materials on specific parameters of rat osteoblast activity in vitro. Primary culture osteoblastic cells were isolated from neonatal rat calvaria by sequential collagenase digestion. To analyze the effect of biomaterials on cell proliferation, cell numbers and viability of the cells were cultured on the graft material for 24, 48 or 96 h. Osteoblast cells cultured in DMEF‐12 media supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum were used as the control group. [3H]thymidine was added during the last 2 h of the incubation. The cell numbers of each well were counted. Cell viability was estimated by counting the number of cells, which excluded trypan blue solution. Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe for visualizing the interactions between osteoblastic cells and TCP graft material. The proportion of cells undergoing DNA synthesis, estimated by thymidine uptake, was significantly (P