Keratin-based films guide biomimetic enamel remineralization by promoting organized hydroxyapatite growth under physiological conditions. Advanced biophysical characterization confirms keratin’s structural adaptability and mineral ions-binding affinity, supporting mineral nucleation and hierarchical crystal assembly. This study establishes keratin as a promising, sustainable platform for functional enamel regeneration, offering a clinically translatable approach for repairing demineralized dental enamel lesions and restoring enamel architecture.
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This study establishes a pre-clinical framework for using water-based keratin platforms to repair enamel demineralization lesions, demonstrating keratin’s potential as a cheap, abundant, and biocompatible biomaterial for functional enamel regeneration. Keratin films self-assembled into β-sheet-rich spherulitic architectures, forming organized nucleation sites that directed the growth of enamel-like mineral layers with aligned apatite nanocrystals and fluoride incorporation. The transition from β-sheets to α-helix and β-turn structures upon mineralization underscores keratin’s dynamic role in orchestrating hierarchical mineralization, mimicking natural enamel formation. These newly formed crystals exhibited significant recovery in hardness and elastic modulus, restoring both surface and subsurface mechanical integrity beyond that achievable with resin infiltration, while preserving crystalline architecture. Importantly, keratin facilitated controlled mineral phase development, transitioning ACP to organized apatite, confirming its capacity to mediate biomineralization efficiently.
Collectively, these findings establish keratin as a clinically viable, sustainable biomaterial for enamel repair, enabling functional regeneration of enamel architecture with a simple, solvent-free fabrication process. Future studies should focus on optimizing keratin’s structural tuning and functionalizing it with additional acidic domains to enhance mineral binding affinity, while conducting systematic in vitro and in vivo cellular studies to evaluate cytocompatibility, bioactivity, and integration within hard tissue environments, thereby supporting its broader application in dental tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Beyond enamel repair, keratin-based matrices hold promise for addressing bony defects, dentine hypersensitivity, and erosive tooth wear, with broad implications for dental and biomedical fields. The simplicity, scalability, and affordability of this system position keratin as a resourceful platform for advancing sustainable, clinically feasible regenerative strategies in tissue engineering and structural biomimetics.
Robin Edgar
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