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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Non-chromatographic Purification of Recombinant Elastin-like Polypeptides and their Fusions with Peptides and Proteins from Escherichia coli
Published on: June 9, 2014
Cross-Linked Elastin-like Polypeptide Membranes as a Model for Medial Arterial Calcification
Ophélie Gourgas1, Lisa D Muiznieks2, Dainelys Guadarrama Bello3
1Department of Mining and Materials Engineering , McGill University , Montreal , Quebec H3A 0C5 , Canada.
Abstract:
Calcium phosphate minerals deposit on the elastin-rich medial layers of arteries in the majority of seniors, diabetic, and chronic kidney disease patients, causing severe cardiovascular complications. There is no cure for medial calcification, and the mechanism of mineral formation on elastin layers is unknown. Here we propose cross-linked elastin-like polypeptide membranes as models to study medial calcification. Calcium phosphates deposit first on fibers and filaments and then spread to globular structures present in the membranes. Mineral phase evolution analyzed by near-edge X-ray spectroscopy matches that previously observed in a mouse model of medial calcification, showing that this simple system captures some of the key in vivo findings. This work shows how minerals form and evolve upon nucleation on elastin and provides an in vitro model that can be tuned to study hypotheses related to arterial calcification mechanisms and test drugs to stop or revert mineralization.
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