Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hu YY
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3012505 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Hu Y-Y YY Rawal A A Schmidt-Rohr K K
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20101202 52
Nanocrystals of apatitic calcium phosphate impart the organic-inorganic nanocomposite in bone with favorable mechanical properties. So far, the factors preventing crystal growth beyond the favorable thickness of ca. 3 nm have not been identified. Here we show that the apatite surfaces are studded with strongly bound citrate molecules, whose signals have been identified unambiguously by multinuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis. NMR reveals that bound citrate accounts for 5.5 wt% of the orga ...[more]