Alternate dipping preparation of biomimetic apatite layers in the presence of carbonate ions.

The classical simulated body fluids method cannot be employed to prepare biomimetic apatites encompassing metallic ions that lead to very stable phosphates. This is the case for heavy metals such as uranium, whose presence in bone mineral after contamination deserves toxicological study. We have demonstrated that existing methods, based on alternate dipping into calcium and phosphate ions solutions, can be adapted to achieve this aim. We have also especially studied the impact of the presence of carbonate ions in the medium as these are necessary to avoid hydrolysis of the contaminating metallic cations. Both the apatite-collagen complex method and a standard chemical (STD) method employing only mineral solutions lead to biomimetic apatites when calcium and carbonate ions are introduced simultaneously. The obtained materials were fully characterized and we established that the STD method tolerates the presence of carbonate ions much better, and this leads to homogeneous samples. Emphasis was set on the repeatability of the method to ensure the relevancy of further work performed on series of samples. Finally, osteoblasts cultured on these samples also proved a similar yield and standard-deviation in their adenosine triphosphate content when compared to commercially available substrates designed to study of such cell cultures.