Graphene oxide and mineralized collagen-functionalized dental implant abutment with effective soft tissue seal and romotely repeatable photodisinfection

Grasping the boundary of antibacterial function may be better for the sealing of soft tissue around dental implant abutment. Inspired by ‘overdone is worse than undone’, we prepared a sandwich-structured dental implant coating on the percutaneous part using graphene oxide (GO) wrapped under mineralized collagen. Our unique coating structure ensured the high photothermal conversion capability and good photothermal stability of GO. The prepared coating not only achieved suitable inhibition on colonizing bacteria growth of Streptococcus sanguinis, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis but also disrupted the wall/membrane permeability of free bacteria. Further enhancements on the antibacterial property were generally observed through the additional incorporation of dimethylaminododecyl methacrylate. Additionally, the coating with sandwich structure significantly enhanced the adhesion, cytoskeleton organization and proliferation of human gingival fibroblasts, which was effective to improve soft tissue sealing. Furthermore, cell viability was preserved when cells and bacteria were cultivated in the same environment by a coculture assay. This was attributed to the sandwich structure and mineralized collagen as the outmost layer, which would protect tissue cells from photothermal therapy and GO, as well as accelerate the recovery of cell activity. Overall, the coating design would provide a useful alternative method for dental implant abutment surface modification and functionalization.