The response of primary rat and human osteoblasts and an immortalized rat osteoblast cell line to orthopaedic materials: comparative sensitivity of several toxicity indices

When studying the biocompatibility of orthopaedic biomaterials it is often necessary to discriminate between responses which show mild cytotoxicity. It is therefore essential to use a very sensitive index of toxicity. We have compared the sensitivity of four well-established indices of toxicity: total cell protein content, leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), reduced glutathione content and the MTT assay, with that of a novel index, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Comparisons were made by detecting nickel chloride toxicity in osteoblasts. ALP activity, the novel method, proved the most sensitive index of toxicity and it provides a convenient automated assay for assessing the interactions of materials with osteoblasts. The responses to nickel chloride and to aqueous extracts prepared from carbon fibre reinforced epoxy and polyetheretherketone (peek), two candidate materials for orthopaedic implants, were compared in primary and immortalized rat osteoblasts, and in primary human osteoblasts. Although the immortalized rat osteoblast cell line, FFC, was consistently the most sensitive cell type, the responses of the human cells and the FFC cell line were similar in terms of ALP activity throughout the range of nickel concentrations studied. Neither peek nor epoxy material extracts showed a significant decrease in the MTT or ALP responses in any of the three cell types. Our data suggest that immortalized rat osteoblasts may provide an in vitro model system for screening the biocompatibility of orthopaedic polymers.