Repair of tooth enamel by a biomimetic mineralization frontier ensuring epitaxial growth.

Abstract

The regeneration of tooth enamel, the hardest biological tissue, remains a considerable challenge because its complicated and well-aligned apatite structure has not been duplicated artificially. We herein reveal that a rationally designed material composed of calcium phosphate ion clusters can be used to produce a precursor layer to induce the epitaxial crystal growth of enamel apatite, which mimics the biomineralization crystalline-amorphous frontier of hard tissue development in nature. After repair, the damaged enamel can be recovered completely because its hierarchical structure and mechanical properties are identical to those of natural enamel. The suggested phase transformation-based epitaxial growth follows a promising strategy for enamel regeneration and, more generally, for biomimetic reproduction of materials with complicated structure.