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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Physical stimulations and their osteogenesis-inducing

mechanisms

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Cijun Shuai 1,2,3 , Wenjing Yang , Shuping Peng , Chengde Gao , Wang Guo , Yuxiao Lai , Pei Feng 1*
1 State Key Laboratory of High Performance Complex Manufacturing, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering,
Central South University, Changsha, China
2 Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, China
3 Key Laboratory of Organ Injury, Aging and Regenerative Medicine of Hunan Province, Changsha, China
4 Hunan Provincial Tumor Hospital and the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South
University, Changsha, China
5 Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Abstract: Physical stimulations such as magnetic, electric and mechanical stimulation could enhance cell activity and
promote bone formation in bone repair process via activating signal pathways, modulating ion channels, regulating bone-
related gene expressions, etc. In this paper, bioeffects of physical stimulations on cell activity, tissue growth and bone
healing were systematically summarized, which especially focused on their osteogenesis-inducing mechanisms. Detailedly,
magnetic stimulation could produce Hall effect which improved the permeability of cell membrane and promoted the
migration of ions, especially accelerating the extracellular calcium ions to pass through cell membrane. Electric stimulation
could induce inverse piezoelectric effect which generated electric signals, accordingly up-regulating intracellular calcium
levels and growth factor synthesis. And mechanical stimulation could produce mechanical signals which were converted
into corresponding biochemical signals, thus activating various signaling pathways on cell membrane and inducing a series
of gene expressions. Besides, bioeffects of physical stimulations combined with bone scaffolds which fabricated using
3D printing technology on bone cells were discussed. The equipments of physical stimulation system were described. The
opportunities and challenges of physical stimulations were also presented from the perspective of bone repair.
Keywords: physical stimulations; cell activity; osteogenesis-inducing mechanisms; bone repair

*Correspondence to: Pei Feng, State Key Laboratory of High Performance Complex Manufacturing, College of Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China; Tel: +86-731-88879351, Fax: (86)-731-88879044, E-mail: fengpei@csu.edu.cn

Received: March 23, 2018; Accepted: May 9, 2018; Published Online: June 11, 2018
Citation: Shuai C, Yang W, Peng S, et al., 2018, Physical stimulations and their osteogenesis-inducing mechanisms. Int J
Bioprint, 4(2): 138. http://dx.doi.org/10.18063/IJB.v4i2.138

1. Introduction be fabricated via 3D printing technology to induce
osteogenesis. While there still exists delayed union or
Millions of people around the world are suffering nonunion resulted from the loss of cell activity or cell
from bone defects caused by bone diseases, traumas, death during bone defect repair. Chemical stimulations
infections, natural disasters, etc. [1,2] In USA alone, there such as growth factors, osteogenic chemical inducers
[3]
are about seven million patients occurs bone defects . and hormones were utilized to improve the activity
In recent years, bone graft is widely used to treat bone of bone cells [8–10] . Nonetheless, they displayed some
defects, including autologous, allograft and artificial disadvantages. For example, growth factors (such as
bone graft [4–7] . Artificial bone graft consists of seeding bone morphogenetic proteins, transforming growth
osteogenic cells onto 3D porous scaffolds which can factors, etc.) display short half-life, and their activity is

Physical stimulations and their osteogenesis-inducing mechanisms. © 2018 Shuai C, et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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