Effects of Activated and Nonactivated Platelet-Rich Plasma on Proliferation of Human Osteoblasts In Vitro

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of progressively increasing concentrations of activated and nonactivated platelet-rich plasma (PRP) on proliferation of human osteoblasts in vitro.

Materials and Methods

Human osteoblasts (hFOB 1.19) obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Manassas, VA) were used in the experiment. PRP was obtained from a 28-year-old healthy male volunteer by means of a Haemonetics gradient density cell separator (Haemonetics, Munich, Germany). Human thrombin was used to activate PRP. Three independent experiments were conducted. Samples containing 10% (0.38× increase in platelet count), 25% (0.95× increase in platelet count), 50% (1.95× increase in platelet count), and 75% (2.86× increase in platelet count) of activated PRP and nonactivated PRP were prepared including controls. After culture periods of 24, 48, and 72 hours osteoblast proliferation was evaluated by counting the number of cells using a Multisizer 3 Coulter Counter (Beckman Coulter, Inc, Fullerton, CA).

Results

After 24, 48, and 72 hours of incubation, the number of cells in the control group (without PRP) was higher than that of cells in samples containing activated or nonactivated PRP. Osteoblasts with 10% activated PRP (0.38× increase in platelet count) had the highest viability of all samples containing PRP.

Conclusions

Activated PRP resulted in higher proliferation of osteoblasts compared with nonactivated PRP at concentrations of 10% (0.38× increase in platelet count) and 25% (0.95× increase in platelet count) in culture. This study failed to show significant increases in proliferation of human osteoblasts treated with activated or nonactivated PRP compared with controls in vitro.