Common Sense: Engineered dental coating exceeds hardness of natural tooth enamel

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Engineered dental coating exceeds hardness of natural tooth enamel

Why does it take so long to develop effective dental coating to prevent dental caries!

Does the lobby of dentists prevent it? (a conspiracy theory, just kidding)

Most of my teeth could have used a better coating when I was much younger! 😊

"... Carried out by scientists in Russia and Egypt, the newly developed dental coating uses hydroxyapatite as a starting point. This compound is the primary component in bone tissue and mineralized tissues in humans and animals. The researchers doped the hydroxyapatite with a complex of amino acids that naturally aid in the repair of bone and muscle structures, such as lysine and arginine, resulting in a mineralized layer with properties resembling the main component of natural enamel. The material was then applied to healthy teeth, so the team could observe its ability to bind to real dental tissue. ..."

"... The new method of dental restoration can be used to reduce the sensitivity of teeth in case of abrasion of enamel or to restore it after erosion or improper diet. ..."

From the abstract:

"The problem of engineering a biomimetic mineralized layer on the surface of native dental tissue (bio-template) was considered in our work.

The formation of the mineralized layer on a biotemplate is achieved with the use of nanocrystalline carbonate-substituted calcium hydroxyapatite (HAp), calcium alkali, and a complex of polyfunctional organic and polar amino acids.
By applying the set of structural and spectroscopic methods of analysis we have confirmed the formation of a mineralized biomimetic HAp layer on the surface of bio-template with properties resembling those of natural hard tissue. The thickness of the biomimetic mineralized layer varies from 300 to 500 nm, while the direction of some ncHAp nanocrystals coincides with that of the apatite crystals in the enamel.
We also demonstrated that the engineered mineralized HAp layer was characterized by homogeneous micromorphology and enhanced nanohardness in the region of the enamel rods exceeding those of native enamel.
The development of a strategy for biomimetic engineering and a technique for enamel surface pre-treatment to enable tissue mineralization has huge potential in dental applications."