Separation of human enamel structures by density fractionation

Correlated physicochemical and age changes in embryonic bovine enamel

“…The mineral is heterogeneous and the majority of the material lies in a density range of 2.0-2.4 g/cm 3. These values are considerably below those determined in this laboratory for mature bovine enamel (>2.7 g/cm3), for mature enamel from other sources (-2.7-3.0 [24,25]), and for well-crystallized HA (3.16) [32]. Compositional analysis of the various enamel density fractions is given in Table 1 and shows a progressively increasing mineral content with increasing density.…”

“…Isolated fractions have then been examined by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic absorption and infrared spectroscopy in order to characterize the physicochemical nature of enamel more completely. Earlier studies of dental tissues using this general preparative scheme have been made to investigate dentin [23], the prism sheath of human enamel [24,25], the kinetics of mineral metabolism in rat teeth [26], and the progressive changes in the mineral phase of incisors from newborn [19,20] and older [27] rats. A preliminary report of the present results has been given [28].…”

EDTA soluble protein of human mature normal enamel

“…After grinding, the resulting enamel powder was sometimes purified further from residual dentine by flotation on a dense solution [17][18][19]. But even then, some dentinal contamination was still possible.…”

“…Regarding the last point, a few investigators have addressed the problem as to the number of proteins actually present in this tissue [3,15,16]. In fact, little is known about the molecular nature of the proteins in human enamel tissue.Despite the use of improved tissue separation methods [17][18][19], it is still difficult to obtain perfectly pure enamel free from dentine contamination. Thus in the present study a microdissection technique was used to prepare pure enamel samples.…”