Nature Communications (Apr 2017)

Chiral acidic amino acids induce chiral hierarchical structure in calcium carbonate

  • Wenge Jiang,
  • Michael S. Pacella,
  • Dimitra Athanasiadou,
  • Valentin Nelea,
  • Hojatollah Vali,
  • Robert M. Hazen,
  • Jeffrey J. Gray,
  • Marc D. McKee

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15066
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Chiral structures are formed in numerous processes including biomineralization of calcium carbonate. Here, the authors demonstrate that the chiral, hierarchically-organized architecture of the calcium carbonate mineral, vaterite, can be controlled simply by the addition of chiral acidic amino acids.