Figure 5.

Characterization of NC mineralization by FTIR measurements of dried MVs. MVs were incubated in SCL devoid of Ca²⁺ (MV Neat) or supplemented with 2 mM Ca²⁺ (MV+Ca²⁺) for 24 h, then dried and analyzed by means of FTIR. The top trace is the spectrum for MV+Ca²⁺ after background subtraction of the MV Neat sample and subsequent amplification by a factor of four to better resolve the peaks. The spectrum of crystalline hydroxyapatite is reported as a control. All FTIR spectra were averaged from at least three independent samples.