Matrices of acidic β-sheet peptides as templates for calcium phosphate mineralization

Early stage of calcium phosphate mineralization on designed β-sheet peptides was monitored that may serve as nucleating templates for hydroxyapatite. A solution composed of the various ions present in the blood serum, in 1.5× their physiological concentration, was selected to monitor the mineralization under conditions that may be of biological relevancy. A film of the peptide that is spread on SBF_1.5 and held 18 hrs in the expanded state prior to compression, becomes less compressible. The TEM images showed structural features that are nanomeric in scale, and found that the flat calcium phosphate sheets could be a form of unchanged amorphous calcium phosphate aggregates. The 20 days mineralized peptide film shows the most prominent differences between the 20 days and 10 days spectra with an enhanced absorption at 1037 cm^-1.