Relationships between dentin and enamel mineral at the dentino-enamel boundary: electron tomography and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy study.

ABSTRACT: To better understand the nature of the relationships between mineral phases at the dentino-enamel boundary (DEB), we performed electron tomography (ET) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) of the apical portions of rat incisors. The ET studies of the DEB at the secretory stage of amelogenesis revealed that nascent enamel crystals are co-aligned and closely associated with dentin crystallites in the mineralized von Korff fibers, with the distances between dentin and enamel crystals in the nanometer range. We have further studied the relationships between dentin and enamel crystals using HR-TEM lattice imaging of the DEB. Among dozens of high-resolution micrographs taken from the DEB we were able to identify only one case of lattice continuity between dentin and enam

SUBMITTER: Fang PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3277257 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature