Strontium coupling with sulphur in mouse bone apatites

One of the key aspects of new advanced biomaterial development is to understand and design new compositions of selected components. The important idea for bioapatite-based materials is the substitution of Ca by other elements, such as strontium. Here, we evaluated the inorganic part of a network of mouse bone apatite. The effects of administration of Sr into mouse bones do not depend on the form of the supplied compound. Sr addition to mouse bones results in the formation of narrow pipe-like structures including additional sulphates in the periosteum and endosteum and somewhere in the middle of the cortical bone. Sr administration clearly entails meaningful regrouping in the sulphate distribution in bone samples. Supposedly, sulphur is absorbed as the sulphates, and this mechanism resembles the involvement of carbonates. After the consideration of several possible ones, new complicated mechanisms of strontium and sulphate intake into bones were derived, which were not the simple ion-exchanges. Also, an alternate mechanism of attraction of Sr and sulphated glycosaminoglycans was considered. This study is the next step in achieving better knowledge of bioapatite structures and role of additional components, together with their interaction with other elements.