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Wandering with Wonder
Published in Usva Seregina, Astrid Van den Bossche, Art-Based Research in the Context of a Global Pandemic, 2023
Luciana Walther, Carlos Eduardo Félix da Costa
The girls from Natchez NC100BW dubbed themselves Girls’n Pearls, in reference to an object they associated with femininity and beauty. Learning about the nickname, the researcher was struck with new layers of meaning that helped unfold another sculptural piece for the project. The pearl is one of few biogenic gemstones, others include amber and ammolite. Its formation takes place as a self-defence mechanism. Upon detecting the presence of a foreign body, the oyster releases a substance, known as nacre, which isolates and coats the parasite. In nature, the phenomenon is very rare – as the oyster defends itself quite well with its own shell – occurring once in every ten thousand animals. In the early 20th century, the Japanese invented a simple way to speed up the process, introducing a small amount of mother-of-pearl, three-quarters of the desired final size, into the shell (Nagai 2013). This information offered the possibility of perceiving the pearl as the birth of beauty from an integration of traumas.
Nanoparticles of Marine Origin and Their Potential Applications
Published in Se-Kwon Kim, Marine Biochemistry, 2023
Fatemeh Sedaghat, Morteza Yousefzadi, Reza Sheikhakbari-Mehr
Dolphins and whales have rough skin surface due to the presence of a nano ridge. These ridges enclose a pore size of 0.2 μm2 which is below the size of marine fouling organisms and hence there is no attachment of biofuels. Nanoscaled structures found on shark skin are in a “brick-and-mortar” arrangement, like a micro-architecture on nacre (mother of pearl), and paved a way for the latest advances in the production of synthetic designed materials, in particular, to be used in biomedical applications [Asmathunisha and Kathiresan, 2013; Singh et al., 2015]. A selection of biosynthesized nanoparticles via marine animals and their biological activity is shown in Table 16.4.
Sponge Enzyme's Role in Biomineralization and Human Applications
Published in Se-Kwon Kim, Marine Biochemistry, 2023
Moin Merchant, Maushmi S. Kumar
The molecularly controlled processes of biomineralization using CAs and their application to bionic manufacturing is recently summarized (Arakaki et al., 2015). Three critical elements, including catalysts, surface recognitions, and template effects, influence the biomineralization formation process. Controlling the molecular composition of these three components could result in biomineralization with diverse structures, morphologies, functions, and performance and that is exactly how CAs bring about biocalcification. Biomineralization-based bionic natural molluscan shell design and three-dimensional (3D) printing were used and described using a layer-by-layer process (Yadav et al., 2018). When compared to nacre and foliated materials, the crossed lamellar microstructure was found to have superior impact properties and a faster wear rate. This microstructural-dependent site-specific printing approach could be used for bionic and biomedical engineering on advanced functionalized materials. Biomineralization-based cell-micro-reactors were proposed to be used like 3D-printing assemblies that would imitate natural bone healing (Itel et al. 2018)
A step toward bio-inspired dental composites
Published in Biomaterial Investigations in Dentistry, 2023
Janine Tiu, Renan Belli, Ulrich Lohbauer
Materials inspiration has been drawn from the inner layer of mollusk shells or nacre (Figure 1(a)). Nacre is composed of ordered interdigitated hexagonal aragonite platelets in a plastic interstitial organic matrix (Figure 1(b,c)). They form complex ‘brick-and-mortar’ structures that enable multiple toughening mechanisms to act simultaneously [13]. Notably, platelets in nacre interlock and slide on each other, bridging the crack wake and providing the energy dissipating processes at the microstructural level (Figure 1(e,f)) [14]. Surface nano-asperities on the platelets (Figure 1(d)) contribute by increasing frictional resistance [15], which adds to the bridging stresses that relieve the critical crack tip stress intensity factor needed for further crack advance. Meanwhile, the development of nacre-like artificial materials produced by a variety of techniques continues in engineering labs. These synthetic materials are capable of steep rising R-curves and reach saturation values for the applied stress intensity factor >8.0 MPa.m0.5 [16–18].
Nanoscaled pearl powder accelerates wound repair and regeneration in vitro and in vivo
Published in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy, 2019
Xi Chen, Li-Hua Peng, Seng-Sing Chee, Ying-Hui Shan, Wen-Quan Liang, Jian-Qing Gao
Nacre is the mother material of pearl. It includes the inner layer of pearl oyster and freshwater mussel shells. The major chemical component of pearl and nacre is calcium carbonate in the form of aragonite. The β-chitin, silk-like proteins, and acidic glycoproteins are also existed in pearl and nacre. Pearl powder is prepared from the pearl oyster. It is difficult to distinguish between pearl powder and nacre powder by naked eyes. Recent years, thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, and near-infrared spectroscopy are used to distinguish the pearl powder and nacre powder. Pearl powder is frequently used in Chinese medicine for palpitations, convulsions, insomnia, and epilepsy [5]. The predominant chemical component of pearl and nacre is calcium carbonate in the form of aragonite [6]. It was reported that calcium in pearl powder was found to have osteogenic activity [7]. Pearl powder also contains 15–18 amino acids, over 20 microelements (including Zn, Ca, Mg, P, Fe, etc.), several types of proteins and short peptides and some other active factors [8]. Pearl powder demonstrated antioxidant [9], antiaging [10], antiradiative, and tonic activities [11]. Clinical applications have also proved its obvious therapeutic efficacy in treating relapsed aphthous ulcer, gastric ulcer, and duodenal ulcer [12]. It was reported that the extracts of pearl powder could stimulate fibroblast mitosis, inhibit metalloproteinase-1 production [13]. And, it was reported that water soluble nacre obtained from powdered nacre (mother of pearl powder) could enhance the recovery of necrotic cellular damage and spurred angiogenesis [14]. All these results suggest that, pearl powder might be effective and safe therapeutics for wound treatment.