Dislocation driven biomineral morphogenesis

Living organisms form a variety of mineralized architectures with exquisite structural control through the process of biomineralization. In addition to the ability to control the morphology, crystallinity and polymorphism of the mineral building blocks that comprise the extraordinary variety of 3D architectures found in nature, some species possess the unique capacity to form single-crystal-like but highly branched assemblies. In this proposed experiment, we aim to test the hypothesis that organisms employ screw dislocations to direct the growth of extremely complex but symmetric singe-crystalline entities. Here, Bragg-CDI (BCDI) experiments will be employed to identify and localize these dislocations in the crystalline endoskeleton of a number of species, thus establishing dislocation-driven crystal growth as key mechanism in controlled morphogenesis of intricate extracellular biological materials.