Biomineralization. Progress in Biology, Molecular Biology and Application. Edited by Edmund Bauerlein

摘要

Mineral formation by organisms - biomineralization - is a widespread process that takes place in organisms as diverse as bacteria and vertebrates. The mineralized products range from single crystals that are no different from those formed inorganically to complex-shaped composite materials. Much of the action occurs at the interface between the mineral and the biological macromolecules that constitute the microenvironment in which the mineral forms. Thus, the subject is inherently interdisciplinary, spanning the inorganic and biological worlds, with no clear-cut division between them. The field of biomineralization attracts researchers from molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, medicine, and materials science. Biomineralization is also important to the historical sciences such as evolution, paleontology, archaeology, and paleoclimatology, as it is the mineralized tissues that are most frequently preserved in the fossil record. It is thus easy to see that all this interest from such diverse disciplines can result in a Tower of Babel syndrome, in which everybody is talking or writing on the same subject, but there is limited communication between them.