Biomineralization: A confluence of materials science, biophysics, proteomics, and evolutionary biology
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Introduction Many of us probably recollect walking along a sandy shore and marveling at the beautiful, ornate shells that are revealed and left behind by a retreating tide (Figure 1). The intricacy of the patterns on these shells are eye-catching, their texture and robustness a product of several million years of evolutionary engineering. They represent some of the marvels of materials conjured up by Mother Nature. The primary constituent of the protective armor (mantle) that encases the soft body of mollusks and some bivalves is calcium carbonate. The mantle of a mollusk differs from that secreted by bivalves in that it is additionally composed of chitin, a biopolymer commonly associated with the exoskeleton of shrimps and lobsters. Biogenic calcite along with amorphous silica represent the two most common biominerals on the planet. Biomineralization is the assembly of these highly organized mineral phases by and in living systems and may be viewed as an accumulation of metal by an organism through a carefully orchestrated biological process, which, in some instances, has remained unchanged over millennia. Interestingly, biomineralization also provides a record of the environmental history of an organism over its lifetime. The motivation to understand and shed light on biomineralization processes is multifaceted. The assembly of mineral phases achieved by living organisms is yet to be rivaled by any synthetic effort by scientists to date. Biominerals, due to their unique hierarchical organization, exhibit very interesting
properties that have potential applications in all walks of life. An interesting aspect of biomineralization is that the formation of the mineral phase occurs from conditions that are not thermodynamically favorable for the mineral phase’s nucleation and growth. Therefore, deciphering the assembly algorithm and components that initiate and promote hierarchical deposition of cations has significant implications for the development of nanocomposites and nanotechnology as a whole. There are numerous examples of biomineralization and classes of biominerals in nature. This diversity provides a unique opportunity for creative and defining collaboration between materials scientists, chemists, biophysicists, and biologists for harnessing the structure–property relationships in these naturally occurring minerals. One can envisage applications for biominerals in several arenas ranging from military hardware, nanocontainers and nanosystems for medical and diagnostic applications, novel materials for photonics with hierarchical structures, and tunable photonic properties (bioinspired optics).1,2 The objective of this MRS Bulletin issue on biomineralization is to highlight some of the challenges in characterizing and replicating biomineralization processes, specifically using biogenic calcite and magnetosomes as representative examples. The articles in the issue do not cover all aspects of biomineralization. For a more comprehensive overview on biomineralization and synthetic systems, refer to the reviews by Palm
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