Rod-shaped hydroxyapatite with mesoporous structure as drug carriers for proteins

•Rod-shaped HAp crystals with mesoporous structure were synthesized by a hydrothermal method using F127 as the template.•The synthesized rod-shaped HAp crystals had irregular mesostructure with a high surface area and pore volume.•HAp showed net positive charge when suspended in simulated body fluid (SBF).•The HAp rods exhibited a higher loading capacity for bovine serum albumin (BSA) than for lysozyme (LSZ) in the SBF.•Proteins release kinetics from rod-shaped HAp crystals was described by the Higuchi model.