Disaggregation of bone into crystals |
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Authors: | Stephen Weiner Paul A Price |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Biology (B-022), University of California, San Diego, B-022, 92093 La Jolla, California;(2) Present address: Isotope Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel |
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Abstract: | Summary The sizes, shapes, and organizational states of the crystals in bone are studied by systematic disaggregation of the mineral
phase. This is achieved by oxidizing the organic phase with sodium hypochlorite, dispersing the resultant particles by sonication,
and separating the crystal aggregates from the crystal monomers by gravity setting in ethanol. Six different bones are compared.
Bones in which crystals are intimately associated with the collagen fibrils mostly disaggregate into crystal monomers. In
dense bones, where the crystals are mostly located between fibrils, they tend to persist as “fused” aggregates. All the crystals
are tabular or plate-shaped. In bones in which the majority of crystals are associated with the collagen fibrils, just less
than 90% of the crystals are shorter than about 450 ? in length. Their widths are on the average about 250 ?, almost an order
of magnitude larger than the diameters of individual gap regions within the collagen fibril. The notion that one crystal is
located in one gap region is therefore untenable and a reevaluation of the relations between collagen and mineral in bone
is necessary. |
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Keywords: | Bone Hydroxyapatite Crystals Collagen Biomineralization |
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