by Maureen Perideaux, Michigan State University

This intravital microscopy rendering provides a 3D view of tissue implanted with biomaterial and metabolic inhibitors that researchers found lead to lower rates of implant rejection. Red shows healing immune cells. Credit: Axel Schmitter-Sánchez

Entertainers like Taylor Swift know the power of an opening act to engage an audience and create a warm welcome for the star performer. When it comes to medical implants, Michigan State University researchers have discovered that using a drug that is a metabolic inhibitor performs like an opening act and makes the body more receptive to medical devices such as pacemakers, replacement joints and dental implants.

"When we surgically place an implant into a human, there will always be an immune response and there's a chance the implant will be rejected," said Ashley Makela, senior research associate at the MSU Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering. "Our research sought to find novel ways to stop that rejection."

Makela and a team of multidisciplinary and multi-institutional members used a drug that signals the body to boost or inhibit a particular reaction, called a metabolic modulator. This drug was incorporated into an amorphous polylactide—a biomaterial used to make medical implants—and then the material was implanted in mice.

Using intravital microscopy—a technique that allows us to look inside a living subject under a microscope—the researchers imaged different kinds of immune cells around the implant site for up to 10 weeks.

Their paper is published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

"Our findings have significant implications for improving patient recovery times, reducing postsurgical complications like chronic inflammation and implant rejection and potentially saving costs," said Makela. "And they may eventually affect the way medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical scientists approach medical implants."

In addition to MSU, the collaborative included team members from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Michigan Medical School. "No one person could have done this on their own," Makela said.

More information: Chima V. Maduka et al, Immunometabolic cues recompose and reprogram the microenvironment around implanted biomaterials, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-024-01260-0

Journal information: Nature Biomedical Engineering 

Provided by Michigan State University