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 and Marc D. McKee ()
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Wenge Jiang: Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University
Michael S. Pacella: Johns Hopkins University
Dimitra Athanasiadou: Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University
Valentin Nelea: Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University
Hojatollah Vali: Faculty of Medicine, McGill University
Robert M. Hazen: Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Jeffrey J. Gray: Johns Hopkins University
Marc D. McKee: Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Chirality is ubiquitous in biology, including in biomineralization, where it is found in many hardened structures of invertebrate marine and terrestrial organisms (for example, spiralling gastropod shells). Here we show that chiral, hierarchically organized architectures for calcium carbonate (vaterite) can be controlled simply by adding chiral acidic amino acids (Asp and Glu). Chiral, vaterite toroidal suprastructure having a ‘right-handed’ (counterclockwise) spiralling morphology is induced by L-enantiomers of Asp and Glu, whereas ‘left-handed’ (clockwise) morphology is induced by D-enantiomers, and sequentially switching between amino-acid enantiomers causes a switch in chirality. Nanoparticle tilting after binding of chiral amino acids is proposed as a chiral growth mechanism, where a ‘mother’ subunit nanoparticle spawns a slightly tilted, consequential ‘daughter’ nanoparticle, which by amplification over various length scales creates oriented mineral platelets and chiral vaterite suprastructures. These findings suggest a molecular mechanism for how biomineralization-related enantiomers might exert hierarchical control to form extended chiral suprastructures.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15066

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