Biomineralization of synthetic polymer scaffolds: A bottom-up approach for the development of artificial bone

ORGN 73

Jie Song, jsong@lbl.gov1, Viengkham Malathong1, and Carolyn R. Bertozzi, crb@berkeley.edu2. (1) Materials Sciences Division and The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Mail Stop 66, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, (2) Departments of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1460
The controlled integration of organic and inorganic components confers natural bone with superior mechanical properties. Bone biogenesis is thought to occur by templated mineralization of hard apatite crystals by an elastic protein scaffold, a process we sought to emulate with synthetic biomimetic hydrogel polymers. Crosslinked polymethacrylamide and polymethacrylate hydrogels were functionalized with mineral-binding ligands and used to template the formation of hydroxyapatite. Strong adhesion between the organic and inorganic materials was achieved for hydrogels functionalized with either carboxylate or hydroxy ligands. The mineral-nucleating potential of hydroxyl groups identified here broadens the design parameters for synthetic bone-like composites and suggests a potential role for hydroxylated collagen proteins in bone mineralization.
 

Materials, Devices, and Switches
1:00 PM-5:00 PM, Sunday, 13 March 2005 Convention Center -- Room 9, Oral

Division of Organic Chemistry

The 229th ACS National Meeting, in San Diego, CA, March 13-17, 2005