Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, 3200003 Haifa, Israel.
J Mater Chem B. 2019 Sep 25;7(37):5725-5731. doi: 10.1039/c9tb01169b.
Fungi live within diverse environments and survive well under extreme conditions that are usually beyond the tolerance of most other organisms. In different environments fungi are known to induce precipitation of a wide range of minerals. Various species of fungi have been shown to facilitate calcium carbonate mineralization. Here, inspired by examples of needle-fiber calcite formed via fungus-induced biomineralization typically observed in soils and sediments, we utilized inactivated fungus to synthetically induce precipitation of CaCO3 needles. To our knowledge, the feasibility of growing aragonitic needles within fungal mycelium in vitro has not been previously demonstrated. The needles we obtained were curved, displayed hexagonal facets, and demonstrated high-aspect ratios close to 60. The size and shape of these synthetic needles matched those of the mycelium of the natural fungus. Utilizing high-resolution characterization techniques, we studied the morphology and the micro- and nanostructures of the aragonitic needles. Our findings showed that even inactivated fungal mycelium, if present in the crystallization environment, can serve as a template for the formation of high-aspect ratio fibers and can stabilize metastable polymorphs.
真菌生活在各种环境中，并能在大多数其他生物无法忍受的极端条件下很好地生存。在不同的环境中，真菌被发现能诱导多种矿物质的沉淀。已经有研究表明，各种真菌物种有助于碳酸钙的矿化。在这里，受土壤和沉积物中通常观察到的真菌诱导生物矿化形成的针状纤维方解石的实例的启发，我们利用失活真菌来合成诱导 CaCO3 针的沉淀。据我们所知，在真菌菌丝体内体外生长文石针的可行性以前没有被证明过。我们得到的针是弯曲的，具有六方的面，并具有接近 60 的高纵横比。这些合成针的大小和形状与天然真菌的菌丝体相匹配。利用高分辨率的表征技术，我们研究了文石针的形态和微观及纳米结构。我们的研究结果表明，即使是失活的真菌菌丝体，如果存在于结晶环境中，也可以作为高纵横比纤维形成的模板，并可以稳定亚稳多晶型。
