Mineralization teeth

The amelogenins are hydrophobic but are also rich in proline, histidine, and glutamic acid.3/b They account for 90% of the matrix proteins but are replaced by the initially less abundant enamelins1 in fully mineralized teeth.a d Another protein present in developing enamel is ameloblastin, which appears to be unique to amyloblasts.3 As mineralization of the enamel progresses the matrix is lost and 98% of the enamel is hydroxylapatite.3... 

Fluorine occurs widely in nature as insoluble fluorides. Calcium fluoride occurs as jluospar or fluorite, for example in Derbyshire where it is coloured blue and called bluejohn . Other important minerals are cryolite NajAlFg (p. 141) and Jluorapatite CaFjSCaj (P04)2. Bones and teeth contain fluorides and some natural water contains traces. 

Up to this point, we have focused on aqueous equilibria involving proton transfer. Now we apply the same principles to the equilibrium that exists between a solid salt and its dissolved ions in a saturated solution. We can use the equilibrium constant for the dissolution of a substance to predict the solubility of a salt and to control precipitate formation. These methods are used in the laboratory to separate and analyze mixtures of salts. They also have important practical applications in municipal wastewater treatment, the extraction of minerals from seawater, the formation and loss of bones and teeth, and the global carbon cycle. 

The properties described above have important consequences for the way in which these skeletal tissues are subsequently preserved, and hence their usefulness or otherwise as recorders of dietary signals. Several points from the discussion above are relevant here. It is useful to ask what are the most important mechanisms or routes for change in buried bones and teeth One could divide these processes into those with simple addition of new non-apatitic material (various minerals such as pyrites, silicates and simple carbonates) in pores and spaces (Hassan and Ortner 1977), and those related to change within the apatite crystals, usually in the form of recrystallization and crystal growth. The first kind of process has severe implications for alteration of bone and dentine, partly because they are porous materials with high surface area initially and because the approximately 20-30% by volume occupied by collagen is subsequently lost by hydrolysis and/or consumption by bacteria and the void filled by new minerals. Enamel is much denser and contains no pores or Haversian canals and there is very, little organic material to lose and replace with extraneous material. Cracks are the only interstices available for deposition of material. 

Posner, A. S. (1961). The structure of the mineral portion of teeth. In Phillips,... 

Mclnroy et al. 1985). Americium radioactivity can be measured in the teeth of rats, where it accumulates in the dental pulp of developing teeth and eventually is incorporated into the mineralized dentin (Hammerstrom and Nilsson 1970). 

Phosphorus compounds occur widely in nature, with some of the most common forms being phosphate rocks and minerals, bones, and teeth. Phosphate minerals include calcium phosphate, Ca3(P04)2 apatite, Ca5(P04)30H fluoroapatite, Ca5(P04)3F and chloroapatite, Ca5(P04)3Cl. Elemental phosphorus was first obtained by H. Brand, and its name is derived from two Greek words meaning "light" and "I bear" because of the phosphorescence of white phosphorus due to slow oxidation. 

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