Researchers are looking for biomimetic mineralization of ena/mel to manage dental erosion. This study evaluated biomimetic mineralization of demineralized enamel induced by a synthetic and self-assembled oligopeptide amphiphile (OPA).

Enamel regeneration currently -is limited by our inability to duplicate artificially its complicated and well-aligned hydroxyapatite structure. The initial formation of enamel occurs in enamel organs where the ameloblasts secret enamel extracellular matrix formed a unique gel-like microenvironment. The enamel extracellular matrix is mainly composed by amelogenin and non-amelogenin. In this study, an innovative strategy was proposed to regenerate enamel-like tissue by constructing a microenvironment using biomimetic enamel matrix proteins (biomimetic EMPs) composed of modified leucine-rich amelogenin peptide (mLRAP) and non-amelogenin analog (NAA). Impressively, the regenerated enamel in this biomimetic EMPs on etched enamel surface produced prismatic structures, and showed similar mechanical properties to natural enamel. The results of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed that regenerated crystal was hydroxyapatite. Molecular dynamics simulation analysis showed the binding energy between mLRAP and NAA were electrostatic forces and Van der Walls. These results introduced a promising strategy to induce crystal growth of enamel-like hydroxyapatite for biomimetic reproduction of materials with complicated hierarchical microstructures.

Biomimetic mineralisation is an alternative restorative methodology that imitates the natural process of mineralisation. We aimed to systematically review the laboratory methods on the biomimetic mineralisation of demineralised enamel. A search in the PubMed, ScienceDirect, and ISI Web of Science databases was performed. Clinical trials, reviews, non-English articles, animal teeth, non-tooth substrates, and irrelevant studies were excluded. After screening the titles and abstracts of initially searched articles, 20 papers remained for full-text analysis. Eight articles were identified from the references of the remaining papers. A total of 28 studies were included in this systematic review. We found that protein or protein analogues were used to mimic the function of natural protein in 23 studies. Bioactive components inspired by mussel, an agarose hydrogel model, a glycerine-enriched gelatine technique, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, were also used for biomimetic mineralisation of enamel. These laboratory studies reported success in the biomimetic mineralisation of enamel. Potential further research on the biomimetic mineralisation of enamel was discussed.