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Chiral Biomineralization: Mirror‐Imaged Helical Growth of Calcite with Chiral Phosphoserine Copolypeptides
Author(s) -
Sugawara Tetsunori,
Suwa Yukie,
Ohkawa Kousaku,
Yamamoto Hiroyuki
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.200350030
Subject(s) - copolymer , morphology (biology) , biomineralization , crystallography , calcite , materials science , polymer chemistry , calcium carbonate , chemistry , chemical engineering , mineralogy , polymer , composite material , geology , paleontology , engineering
The O ‐phospho‐ L ‐serine [Ser(P)] containing peptides and proteins play an important role in controlling the morphology of biominerals. The poly[Ser(P)] and copoly[Ser(P) x Asp y ] affect the calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) morphology and polymorph. The CaCO 3 helical structures were obtained in the presence of copoly[Ser(P) 75 Asp 25 ]. When the L ‐copolymer was used as an additive, a clockwise P twisted spiral morphology was formed. On the other hand, when using D ‐copolymer, a counterclockwise M twisted spiral morphology was obtained.Optical micrographs of chiral morphologies of CaCO 3 in the presence of a) L ‐copolymer and b) D ‐copolymer.