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Published on: May 16, 2019
Engineered phage films as scaffolds for CaCO3 biomineralization
Steven Tom1, Hyo-Eon Jin2, Kwang Heo2
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. leesw@berkeley.edu and Department of Bioengineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and Biological Systems and Engineering, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Abstract:
M13 bacteriophages (phage) were exploited as CaCO3 mineralization scaffolds for hard tissue engineering applications. M13 phage was first self-assembled into biomimetic fibrous scaffolds, followed by CaCO3 biomineralization via the polymer-induced liquid precursor process. The phage scaffolds successfully incorporated calcium carbonate, facilitating nucleation and growth of spherulitically textured calcite. The Young's modulus of the scaffolds increased by an order of magnitude after mineralization while also supporting the growth of mouse fibroblasts. These findings demonstrate that phage-based biomaterials are a feasible platform for creating biomineralized hard tissue constructs, in support of future studies in hard tissue engineering and biomedical applications.
