Untersuchungen zur Mineralisation von CaCO3 in nach biologischem Vorbild künstlich funktionalisierten Hydrogelmatrices

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Gerhard Sextl, seit 4/2006
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Biologische und Biomimetische Chemie
• Förderung: Förderung von 2005 bis 2008
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 5455108

A key feature of biominerals is the specific interaction of inorganic material with organic matter. Hydrogels and organic macromolecules play a decisive role for the growth mechanism. The microstructure and the formation of biominerals have gained increasing interest during the last decades. Biomaterials were studied intensively and model experiments were developed to study basic principles of biomineralization. We investigated the structure of several biominerals and compared the results with crystallization experiments of calcium carbonate in different hydrogels. Our detailed analyses of biominerals revealed nano-scale growth structures as a newly-discovered common feature: All samples investigated show a nano-granular structure in the range between 30 and 100 nm. The key for the explanation of this phenomenon seems to be a special growth mechanism: Specific model experiments in synthetic hydrogels yielded very similar granular structures, in that case the simple presence of a hydrogel provokes a crystallization process fundamentally different from the classical layer-by-layer growth. Growth experiments with poly-L-aspartate as a model substance for soluble macromolecules give impulses for future work concerning the specific effect of such macromolecules on crystal growth and their interaction with gel networks. We believe that the crystal growth by granular subunits is one of the basic principles of biomineralization that facilitates the morphogenesis independent of the respective crystalline equilibrium forms.

• DFG-Verfahren: Schwerpunktprogramme
• Teilprojekt zu: SPP 1117: Prinzipien der Biomineralisation
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Gerd Müller, bis 4/2006