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Dental implants need to support good osseointegration into the surrounding bone for full functionality. Interconnected porous structures have a lower stiffness and larger surface area compared with bulk structures, and therefore are likely to enable better bone-implant fixation. In addition, grading of the porosity may enable large pores for ingrowth on the periphery of an implant and a denser core to maintain mechanical properties. However, given the small diameter of dental implants it is very challenging to achieve gradations in porosity. This paper investigates the use of Selective Laser Melting (SLM) to produce a range of titanium structures with regular and graded porosity using various CAD models. This includes a novel 'Spider Web' design and lattices built on a diamond unit cell. Well-formed interconnecting porous structures were successfully developed in a one-step process. Mechanical testing indicated that the compression stiffness of the samples was within the range for cancellous bone tissue. Characterization by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) indicated the designed porosities were well-replicated. The structures supported bone cell growth and deposition of bone extracellular matrix., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Green tea catechins confer potent biological properties including antioxidation and free-radical scavenging. We investigated the effect of long-term oral administration of green tea catechins (Polyphenon E, PE: EGCG 63%; EC 11%; EGC 6%; ECG 6%) mixed with water on the spatial cognition learning ability of young rats. The learning ability of rats administered PE (0%, 0.1%, 0.5%) for 26 wk was assessed in the partially baited 8-arm radial maze. Relative to controls, those administered PE had improved reference and working memory-related learning ability. They also had lower plasma concentrations of lipid peroxides and greater plasma ferric-reducing antioxidation power than controls. Furthermore, rats administered PE had lower hippocampus reactive oxygen species concentrations than controls. We suggest that this improvement in spatial cognitive learning ability is due to the antioxidative activity of green tea catechins.

Low energy protons and other densely ionizing light ions are known to have RBE>1 for cellular end points relevant for stochastic and deterministic effects. The occurrence of a close relationship between them and induction of DNA dsb is still a matter of debate. We studied the production of DNA dsb in V79 cells irradiated with low energy protons having LET values ranging from 11 to 31 keV/micrometer, i.e. in the energy range characteristic of the Bragg peak, using the sedimentation technique. We found that the initial yield of dsb is quite insensitive to proton LET and not significantly higher than that observed with X-rays, in agreement with recent data on V79 cells irradiated with alpha particles of various LET up to 120 keV/micrometer. By contrast, RBE for cell inactivation and for mutation induction rises with the proton LET. In experiments aimed at evaluating the rejoining of dsb after proton irradiation we found that the amount of dsb left unrepaired after 120 min incubation is higher for protons than for sparsely ionizing radiation. These results indicate that dsb are not homogeneous with respect to repair and give support to the hypothesis that increasing LET leads to an increase in the complexity of DNA lesions with a consequent decrease in their repairability.