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

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gerhard Sextl, since 4/2006
• Subject Area: Biological and Biomimetic Chemistry
• Term: from 2005 to 2008
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 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 Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1117: Principles of Biomineralization
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Gerd Müller, until 4/2006