IMR Press / FBL / Volume 17 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.2741/3918

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Review
Bone mineralization
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1 Department of Experimental Medicine, La Sapienza University of Rome, Policlinico Umberto I, Viale Regina Elena 324, 00161 Rome, Italy
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2012, 17(1), 100–128; https://doi.org/10.2741/3918
Published: 1 January 2012
Abstract

This review attempts to summarize the findings made available by the literature on the mineralization of bone. The types of bone, their structures and compositions, the nature and organization of organic and inorganic matter, the organic-inorganic relationships, and the mineralization mechanism itself, are the main topics of the present review. As in other hard tissues, bone mineralization occurs in, and is conditioned by, the components of the organic matrix. Collagen fibrils have long been considered the factor that is able to induce the deposition of apatite crystallites through a process of heterogeneous nucleation. Interfibrillar non-collagenous proteins are now considered to be co-factors that permit crystallite deposition. The main components of these proteins are reviewed. It is hypothesized that two independent types of mineral are present in bone, one contained in the collagen fibrils and corresponding to the granular, electron-dense bands, and the other contained in the interfibrillar spaces and corresponding to needle- and filament-like crystals. The deposition mechanism of these mineral structures remains elusive. The formation of the crystallites through an epitaxial mechanism is discussed.

Keywords
Bone
Bone Mineralization
Bone Matrix
Organic-Inorganic Relationships
Mineralization Mechanism
Review
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