The scientists describe their results finding a sort of "glue" in human bone in the cover story of the August issue of the international scientific journal, Nature Materials. The article was published on-line on July 17. It describes how healthy bone resists fracture and how unhealthy bone fractures at the molecular level. Included with the article are the highest resolution images of bone ever published, which reveal the location of the adhesive or "glue" that holds together mineralized collagen fibrils (protein fibers) of bone.
The glue appears to contain "springs" that uncoil when the bone is stressed, helping the bone to absorb shock. When the stress is relaxed, they coil back to their original structure.
The possible implications for human health are important, explained Georg E. Fantner, a UCSB doctoral student in physics and first author of the report. "The findings may lead to therapy for bone fracture, or even to prevention," he said.
Working in the physics laboratory of Professor Paul K. Hansma, in collaboration with the UCSB labs of Professors Daniel E. Morse and Galen D. Stucky, the interdisciplinary group of scientists spent several years tracking down where the glue was located in bone, and how it worked.
"Before this research, it was well known that the mechanical properties of bone depended on mineral particles and on collagen fibrils," said Hansma. "The picture of bone was that it consisted of these collagen fibrils coated with tiny mineral crystals only a few atoms thick. What we found is that there is a glue in bone that holds these mineralized collagen fibrils together, and this glue works along the same principles that our interdisciplinary research group found in abalone shells. This glue involves sacrificial bonds (with hidden length) t
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Contact: Gail Gallessich
gail.g@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-7220
University of California - Santa Barbara
18-Jul-2005