Abstract:
Bird eggs possess a mineralized eggshell with a soft underlying fibrous membrane. These dissimilar material layers successfully evolved a structural attachment to each other as a conserved avian reproduction strategy essential to avian embryonic development, growth, and hatching of the chick. To understand how organic membrane fibers attach to shell mineral (calcite), 3D multiscale imaging including X-ray and electron tomography coupled with deep learning-based feature segmentation was used to show how membrane fibers are organized and anchored into shell mineral. Whole fibers embed into mineral across the microscale, while fine mineral projections (granules/spikes) insert into fiber surfaces at the nanoscale, all of which provides considerable surface area and multiscale anchorage at the organic-inorganic interface between the fibrous membrane and the shell. Such a reciprocal anchorage system occurring at two different length scales between organic fibers and inorganic mineral provides a secure attachment mechanism for avian eggshell integrity across two dissimilar materials.
摘要:
鸟卵具有矿化的蛋壳,其下层具有柔软的纤维膜。这些不同的材料层成功地进化出彼此的结构附着,作为鸟类胚胎发育必不可少的保守的鸟类繁殖策略,增长,和小鸡的孵化。要了解有机膜纤维如何附着在壳矿物(方解石)上,3D多尺度成像,包括X射线和电子层析成像以及基于深度学习的特征分割,用于显示膜纤维如何组织和锚定到壳矿物中。整个纤维在微观尺度上嵌入矿物中,当精细矿物突起(颗粒/尖刺)以纳米级插入纤维表面时,所有这些都在纤维膜和外壳之间的有机-无机界面处提供了相当大的表面积和多尺度锚固。在有机纤维和无机矿物质之间以两个不同长度尺度出现的这种相互锚固系统为跨越两种不同材料的禽类蛋壳完整性提供了安全的附接机制。