Review Kinetic Approach to Biomineralization: Interactions of Synthetic Polypeptides with Calcium Carbonate Polymorphs†

Abstract. Biomineralization processes are the subject of numerous investigations. This article gives a re-view of the study on interactions between the charged polypeptides and the mineral surfaces involved in biomineralization, with an additional kinetic approach. The influence of polypeptides on two types of pre-cipitation processes is discussed: the spontaneous precipitation from supersaturated solution and the growth kinetics of calcite seed crystals. In the first case the phenomenon of the formation and stabilization of metastable phases was found while in the second case the influence of the applied polypeptides on the kinetics and mechanisms of calcite crystal growth was investigated. Calcium carbonate polymorphs, cal-cite and vaterite, were used as biomineral substrates and acidic polypeptides, poly-L-aspartic (pAsp) acid and poly-L-glutamic (pGlu) acid, as simplified models of naturally occurring soluble acidic proteins. A basic polypeptide, poly-L-lysine (pLys), was also used in experiments in order to find out whether con-formity between the crystal surface and the adsorbed polypeptide, or just the electrostatic interactions, have a decisive role in these processes. The addition of a particular polypeptide into the precipitation sys-tem caused a significant inhibition of nucleation and growth of vaterite, the extent of inhibition being in the order InhpAsp> InhpGlu>> InhpLys. In addition to the inhibition of precipitation, the change of the poly-morphic composition and the crystal morphology of the precipitate were also achieved. The explanation o