Normal Biological Mineralization

Abstract

Biological mineralization is a phenomenon of great importance through the vertebrate and invertebrate kingdoms. Calcification allows man to stand erect, chew food, and maintain calcium and phosphate homeostasis (since bones serve as a storehouse of calcium and phosphate ions). The reason for the selective deposition of rock-hard, insoluble crystalline salts of calcium phosphate only within certain supportive tissues has been a fascination to generations of scientists interested in calcification. Although the reason for selective calcification is still not totally understood, it is an article of faith among many investigators that the skeletal cells (of bone, cartilage, and tooth) somehow initiate and control calcification, keeping it confined to tissues in which hardness is useful to the host. Only under pathological conditions does the normal process of calcium phosphate crystal deposition break free of homeostatic control, producing disastrous consequences [6].