An Electrophoretic Approach Provides Tunable Mineralization Inside Agarose Gels

Abstract

Mineralization inside agarose gels was examined using an electrophoretic approach. Effective ion migration for mineralization, for example, of calcium carbonate and hydroxyapatite, was shown to be a crucially important factor. Calcium, carbonate, and phosphate ions easily migrated into the gel interior from ionic solutions when an electric field was applied to both terminals of the gel. The time to reach complete mineral formation was only 3 min, and 10−50 µg of calcium carbonate and 50−100 µg of hydroxyapatite were formed in 1 mg of dry gel. The concentration of the ion species regulated the total amount of mineral formation. These ionic movements into the gel interior were achieved by a novel electrophoretic migration method. The resulting minerals were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron spectroscopy, and then the minerals were assigned as calcite and hydroxyapatite. Moreover, the dissolution of these minerals was evaluated in phosphate buffered saline (PBS)...