Abstract
Biominerals fulfill various physiological functions in living organisms, however, pathological mineralization can also occur generating mineral pathologies such as the formation of calcium oxalate (CaOx) calculi in the urinary tract. Inspired by the ability of living organisms to generate biogenic minerals using biological organic matrices, and the need to understand the mechanisms of crystallization, three-dimensional fibrillary meshes based on chitosan fibers with random and controlled topology by electrospinning were manufactured. Chitosan was selected due to its active role on in vitro crystallization and its physicochemical properties, which allows the exposure of their functional chemical groups that could selectively stabilize hydrated crystalline forms of CaOx. CaOx crystals were generated on conductive tin indium oxide (ITO) glass substrates modified with electrospun chitosan fibers by using electrocrystallization (EC) technique. The chitosan fibers and the resulting CaOx crystals were analyzed by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques, which demonstrated that the chemical nature and topology of the three-dimensional fibers used as organic template are key factors in the control of type, morphology, and crystallographic orientation of CaOx.
Highlights
In nature, there are living organisms capable of generating highly hierarchical hybrid materials formed by minerals and organic components called biominerals with precise control of size, texture, crystallinity, and composition at the molecular level [1,2]
Under our experimental EC condition, more COD crystals were formed as well as possible transformation of COM to COD can be promoted. These findings demonstrate firstly the ability of chitosan–Electrospun meshes (ESM) to stabilize the more stable tetragonal COD phase and, secondly, how the orientation of chitosan fiber is a key factor for crystallizing most effectively COD than COM according to our established EC procedure
R-chitosan and A-chitosan fibers were prepared from 0.1% chitosan solution using HFIP as solvent through ES technique directly on indium tin oxide (ITO) glass substrates
Summary
There are living organisms capable of generating highly hierarchical hybrid materials formed by minerals and organic components called biominerals with precise control of size, texture, crystallinity, and composition at the molecular level [1,2]. It is known that the presence of this crystal is not attributed exclusively to the pathology since it is possible to find COM in healthy individuals. This situation occurs due to the inhibitory effect of compounds such as citrate, a molecule rich in carboxyl groups, present in the urine, which interacts with specific crystalline phases preventing the pathological formation of kidney stones [4,5,6,7]. It is known that functional chemical groups of organic templates, the experimental crystallization parameters, as well as the exact control of the interfacial molecular recognition between organic and inorganic nucleus of minerals and the selective stabilization of a particular hydrated
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