Biomineralization is the process that enables living organisms to produce, within or on their body, skeletal hardparts consisting of inorganic crystals or amorphous mineral phases and organic matrix. In some cases this process is intracellular (e.g., in unicellular algae, higher plants, sponges, etc.), but in most cases it is extracellular. In intracellular biomineralization the hardpart is formed in vacuoles in the cytoplasm. Extracellular biomineralization occurs on the surface of single cells, or on the surface of ectodermal or mesenchymal tissue which presumably secretes physiological fluids containing the basic constituents of the organic and inorganic components of the prospective hardpart (Fig. 1). These fluids originate, in mollusks for instance, in the vesicles of the Golgi apparatus, from where they are transported through the cell, and released beyond the surface of the mantle epithelium to become part of the colloidal extrapalleal fluid. Enamel and dentine of vertebrate...
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Chave, K.E., Erben, H.K. (1979). Biomineralization . In: Paleontology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31078-9_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31078-9_17
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