TY - JOUR

T1 - Pseudo-Biomineralization: Complex Mineral Structures Shaped by Microbes

AU - Durak, Grażyna M.

AU - Laumann, Michael

AU - Wolf, Stefan L. P.

AU - Pawar, Atul

AU - Gebauer, Denis

AU - Böttcher, Thomas

N1 - Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge funding by the EU FP7 Marie Curie Zukunftskolleg Incoming Fellowship Program (TB), the Zukunftskolleg Research Fellowship (DG), the Emmy Noether program of the DFG (T.B.), the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (T.B., A.P., and G.M.D.), the Konstanz Research School Chemical Biology KoRS-CB (T.B.), and the Brückenstipendium für Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen within the framework of the excellence initiative at the University of Konstanz (G.M.D.). G.M.D., D.G., and T.B. acknowledge financial support by the Young Scholar Fund provided by the University of Konstanz. The authors would like to thank the Bioimaging Centre for providing CLSM facilities at the University of Konstanz and also extend their thanks to Natalia Jezierska (AGH University of Science and Technology Kraków, Poland) for contributing towards titration experiments and to Dr. Masoud Farhadi-Khouzani for help with FT-IR analysis.

PY - 2019/10/14

Y1 - 2019/10/14

N2 - Biomineralization is an active, biologically governed process of mineral formation, established early on in the history of life. The appearance of biomineralizing organisms heavily influenced the course of evolution, leading to the development of the large diversity of the extant taxa. Yet, we are still only beginning to grasp the intricate, genetically regulated mechanisms involved. Since prokaryotic organisms were the first to emerge from the primordial environments, we investigated bacteria-mineral interactions using titration and gas diffusion systems adapted to emulate conditions, which may have facilitated the development of biomineralization initially. By screening the minerals and bacteria from titration experiments with scanning electron microscopy, we discovered a broad spectrum of behavioral strategies employed by bacteria confronted with calcification, which fell into three main categories: (1) evasion of mineralization by the formation of the biofilm, (2) random embedding into the mineral, and (3) control over the mineral shape during its formation. The latter phenomenon we termed pseudo-biomineralization. Our experiments indicate that pseudo-biomineralization is an active process obligatorily reliant on the external calcifying conditions and allowing considerable degree of control over mineral shape, thus producing structures reminiscent of true biominerals. Here, we describe this notion for the first time, thus providing vital insight into the genesis of a transitional stage to calcium carbonate-based biomineralization systems.

AB - Biomineralization is an active, biologically governed process of mineral formation, established early on in the history of life. The appearance of biomineralizing organisms heavily influenced the course of evolution, leading to the development of the large diversity of the extant taxa. Yet, we are still only beginning to grasp the intricate, genetically regulated mechanisms involved. Since prokaryotic organisms were the first to emerge from the primordial environments, we investigated bacteria-mineral interactions using titration and gas diffusion systems adapted to emulate conditions, which may have facilitated the development of biomineralization initially. By screening the minerals and bacteria from titration experiments with scanning electron microscopy, we discovered a broad spectrum of behavioral strategies employed by bacteria confronted with calcification, which fell into three main categories: (1) evasion of mineralization by the formation of the biofilm, (2) random embedding into the mineral, and (3) control over the mineral shape during its formation. The latter phenomenon we termed pseudo-biomineralization. Our experiments indicate that pseudo-biomineralization is an active process obligatorily reliant on the external calcifying conditions and allowing considerable degree of control over mineral shape, thus producing structures reminiscent of true biominerals. Here, we describe this notion for the first time, thus providing vital insight into the genesis of a transitional stage to calcium carbonate-based biomineralization systems.

KW - CaCO mineralization

KW - bacteria

KW - biofilm

KW - biogenic calcite

KW - biomineralization

KW - evolution

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072918913&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b00387

DO - 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b00387

M3 - Article

VL - 5

SP - 5088

EP - 5096

JO - ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering

JF - ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering

SN - 2373-9878

IS - 10

ER -