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An In Vitro Investigation of the Spatial Control Involved in Collagen Mineralization

An in vitro model system utilizing de-mineralized periodontium tissues was developed for investigating the molecular controls involved in the spatial deposition of minerals on collagenous tissues. Preferential mineral deposition was observed when the de-mineralized tissue sections were incubated in solutions containing a supersaturation of calcium and phosphate ions with respect to hydroxyapatite (HA). Energy dispersive X-Ray (EDX) analysis demonstrated that these minerals are likely to be octacalcium phosphate (OCP) or dicalcium phosphate dihydrate (DCPD); further characterization with a secondary technique is required to draw a more definitive conclusion. The role of collagen fibrils in mineralization was tested by removing all the non-collagenous components from the tissue sections with proteolytic enzymes and exposing them to similar mineralization conditions as the control samples. A substantially less amount of minerals were formed in these samples; this correlates well with the hypothesis in the literature that collagen fibrils alone cannot initiate mineral formation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/32133
Date16 February 2012
CreatorsSong, Janice
ContributorsSone, Eli D.
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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