title: Biological strategy for the fabrication of highly ordered aragonite helices: the microstructure of the cavolinioidean gastropods.
abstract: The Cavolinioidea are planktonic gastropods which construct their shells with the so-called aragonitic helical fibrous microstructure, consisting of a highly ordered arrangement of helically coiled interlocking continuous crystalline aragonite fibres. Our study reveals that, despite the high and continuous degree of interlocking between fibres, every fibre has a differentiated organic-rich thin external band, which is never invaded by neighbouring fibres. In this way, fibres avoid extinction. These intra-fibre organic-rich bands appear on the growth surface of the shell as minuscule elevations, which have to be secreted differentially by the outer mantle cells. We propose that, as the shell thickens during mineralization, fibre secretion proceeds by a mechanism of contact recognition and displacement of the tips along circular trajectories by the cells of the outer mantle surface. Given the sizes of the tips, this mechanism has to operate at the subcellular level. Accordingly, the fabrication of the helical microstructure is under strict biological control. This mechanism of fibre-by-fibre fabrication by the mantle cells is unlike that any other shell microstructure.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad de Granada, Granada, 18071, Spain.|Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, CSIC-Universidad de Granada, Armilla, 18100, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Checa
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad de Granada, Granada, 18071, Spain.|Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, CSIC-Universidad de Granada, Armilla, 18100, Spain.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Macías-Sánchez
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad de Sevilla, 41012, Sevilla, Spain.|Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Sevilla (CSIC-Universidad de Sevilla), 41092 Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: Joaquín
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ramírez-Rico
mesh_terms: D060105:Animal Shells / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D000818:Animals; D002119:Calcium Carbonate / Q000737:chemistry*; D003460:Crystallization; D049851:Gastropoda / Q000502:physiology*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D008958:Models, Molecular; D015394:Molecular Structure; D060734:Nacre / Q000737:chemistry*; D010933:Plankton
chemical_list: D060734:Nacre; D002119:Calcium Carbonate