Nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate-loaded micro-arc oxidation coating for biodegradable magnesium alloy pellets inhibits osteosarcoma through targeting of the mevalonate pathway

Abstract Osteosarcoma (OS) remains one of the most threatening primary malignant human tumors of the bone, especially in the first or second decade of life. Unfortunately, the clinical therapeutic efficacy has not substantially improved over the past four decades. Therefore, to achieve efficient tumor eradication, a new approach to prevent tumor recurrence is urgently needed. Here, we develop a new bisphosphonate (BP)-loaded microarc oxidation (MAO) coated magnesium-strontium (Mg-Sr) alloy pellet that can inhibit OS, and we illuminate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the inhibiting effect. To generate such pellets, nitrogen-containing BP is chemically conjugated with a MAO coating on hollow Mg-Sr alloys. We demonstrate that BP coated Mg pellet has multiple desired features for OS therapy through in vitro and in vivo studies. At the cellular level, BP coated Mg pellets not only induce apoptosis and necrosis, as well as antitumor invasion of OS cells in the two-dimensional (2D) cell culture environment, but also damage the formation of multicellular tumor spheroids by OS cell lines in the three-dimensional (3D) cell culture environment. At the in vivo level, BP coated Mg pellets can destroy tumors and prevent neoplasm recurrence via synergistic Mg degradation and drug release. It is further suggested that the superior inhibitory effect on OS of our pellet is achieved by inhibiting the mevalonate pathway at the molecular level. Hence, these results collectively show that the BP coated Mg pellet is a promising candidate for future applications in repairing defects after tumor removal in OS therapy.