从生物矿化到仿生矿化:构筑新功能生命体

From Biological to Biomimetic Mineralization:Construction of New Functional Life Forms

生物矿化是生命体通过调控无机矿物的成核、取向、生长和组装来制造有机-无机复合材料的过程。借鉴生物矿化的原理,可利用有机基质实现无机材料的可控合成,制备出性能优异的新型复合材料。更有趣的是,将材料和生物体从结构和功能两个层面整合,利用材料-生物之间的协同调控,可构筑出新功能生命体,这也是仿生矿化发展的重要方向。本论文首先介绍生物矿化的基本理论和自然界中的生物矿化现象。随后通过对生物矿物结构和功能的阐述,提出仿生构筑新功能生命体的概念,并系统介绍构筑新型材料-生物体的方法,在此基础上系统总结新功能生命体在环保、能源、医学等领域的应用。最后,针对目前该领域存在的局限和问题展开讨论,对实现智能仿生构筑生命体的研究进行展望。我们认为基于仿生矿化构筑新功能生命体的研究能够推动学科边界不断融合,为材料学、化学生物学、生物无机化学以及医学等领域的发展提供新的方向。

Biomineralization is an important biological process of organisms to produce organic-inorganic composites with hierarchical structures,where the biological matrix plays a predominant role in the regulation of nucleation,orientation,growth,and self-assembly of inorganic materials.According to the principle of biomineralization,bionic organic-inorganic composites with well-defined structure and excellent properties can be thus synthesized under a biomatrix-mediated process.Intriguingly,it is now possible to obtain new functionalized organisms by means of biomimetic mineralization through synergistic integration of structure and function of both materials and organisms,which has become an emerging direction.This review first introduces the basic theory and phenomenon of biological mineralization in nature.Then,by introducing the structure and function of biological minerals,we propose the concept of biomimetic construction of new functional life,and systematically introduce the methods involving the construction of new material-organisms hybrid.On this basis,such biomineralization-based engineering strategy provides a new way to produce materials-organisms hybrids as new life forms,and shows immense potentials in environmental protection,energy,medicine and other fields.Finally,the limitations and problems existing in this field are discussed,and promising prospects of intelligent construction of materials-organisms hybrids are also presented.We believe the biomineralization-based engineering of organisms can promote the continuous fusion of disciplinary boundaries and provide a new development direction in the fields of materials science,chemical biology,bioinorganic chemistry and medicine.