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The effect of ribose pre-treatment of cortical bone on γ-irradiation sterilization effectiveness

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Abstract

Reconstruction of large skeletal defects is a significant and challenging issue. Tissue banks often use γ-irradiation (15–35 kGy) to sterilize bone allografts, which, however, drastically impairs the post-yield mechanical properties. In previous studies, we reported the development of a method that protects human bone collagen connectivity through ribose crosslinking while still undergoing γ-irradiation. Given these promising results, the next step was to determine if the presence of ribose within the bone tissue would interfere with the effectiveness of the γ-irradiation sterilization against bacteria. This study had two stages. The aim of the first stage was to assess the protective effect of ribose in solution using a Bacillus pumilus spore strip model. The aim of the second stage was to assess the protective effect of ribose (R) on spores within a human cortical bone model in comparison to conventionally irradiated bone (I). Treatment of B. pumilus spore strips with ribose in solution led to temperature-dependent effects on spore viability versus spore strips treated with PBS alone. Ribose solution at 60 °C led to a notable two logs decrease in spore count relative to PBS at 60 °C. In the human bone model, the number of spores in the I and R groups were greatly decreased in comparison to the non-irradiated N group. No spore colonies were detected in the R group (n = 4) whereas two of the four plates of group I formed colonies. This study provides evidence that the method of pre-treating bone with ribose crosslinking prior to irradiation sterilization, while improving irradiation sterilized bone allograft quality, also may improve the effectiveness of the sterilization process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and scholarships from the University of Toronto Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and Toronto Musculoskeletal Centre. We acknowledge the help of our tissue-banking partner, Mount Sinai Allograft Technologies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Musculoskeletal Research Laboratory, Mount Sinai Hospital – Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tarik Attia, Jindra Tupy & Marc Grynpas

  2. Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tarik Attia & Marc Grynpas

  3. Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Dalal Asker & Benjamin Hatton

  4. Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

    Dalal Asker

  5. Biomedical Engineering Program, Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Thomas Willett

Authors
  1. Tarik Attia
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  2. Jindra Tupy
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  3. Dalal Asker
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  4. Benjamin Hatton
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  5. Marc Grynpas
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  6. Thomas Willett
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Willett.

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Attia, T., Tupy, J., Asker, D. et al. The effect of ribose pre-treatment of cortical bone on γ-irradiation sterilization effectiveness. Cell Tissue Bank 18, 555–560 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-017-9662-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-017-9662-1

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