Ideal outcomes in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine involve biomaterials that can enhance cell differentiation and tissue repair without the use of systemic drugs. Tissue engineering biomaterials include polymeric scaffolds that mimic the native 3-D structural environment of the final application, but that usually need to be functionalized with proteins or small peptides to improve their bioactivity. Particularly for bone applications, titanium implants, or more appropriately the titanium dioxide (TiO2) passive layer formed on their surface, have been shown to enhance osteoblast differentiation in vitro and to promote osseointegration in vivo. However, few studies have looked at the effect of the structural properties of pure TiO2 porous biomaterials for tissue engineering. In this study, we evaluated the effect of pure TiO2 nano-fiber meshes prepared by electrospinning, with different surface roughness and nano-fiber diameters, on osteoblast differentiation.

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