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Hard Tissue Regeneration In Strombus Gigas, the Giant Queen Conch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

X. Su  and
A. H. Heuer
X. Su
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering Case Western Reserve University 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106–7204
A. H. Heuer
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering Case Western Reserve University 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106–7204
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Abstract

Hard tissue regeneration (i.e. shell repair) is an important biomineralization process in mollusks. Rapid regeneration is important in avoiding loss of fluids and preventing attacks by predators. We have studied such tissue regeneration in the Queen conch (Strombus Gigas) by inserting an abiotic glass cover slide between the mantle tissue and the shell. The glass cover slides were removed after mineralization periods extending from 6 hours to 4 days, and the deposited materials on the glass substrates (“flat pearls”) analyzed by X-ray diffraction, and scanning and transmission electron microscopy.

Although the CaCO3 in native Queen conch shell is exclusively aragonite, calcite was detected in the regenerated materials grown on glass substrates. Calcite formation occurred only during the very early stage of mineralization and the initial minerals formed were soon overgrown by aragonite. The initial aragonite overgrowth had a spherulitic morphology, and was thus relatively poorly oriented; after this spherulitic transient, the microstructure was recognizable as the crossed-lamellar structure of the natural shell.

Thus, shell regeneration on abiotic substrates differs from shell formation during growth of conchs only in the very early stage. Once the crossed-lamellar microstructure has formed, further hard tissue development is identical to that occurring during natural shell growth.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 599: Symposium DD – Mineralization in Natural & Synthetic Biomaterials , 1999 , 225
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2000

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