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. 2022 Oct 1;12:16477. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-20684-9

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© The Author(s) 2022

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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FIB-bSEM of 7-week Acp4^+/+ and Acp4^R110C/R110C Mandibular Incisors (continued). The images show enamel formed later during the secretory stage in (A) Acp4^+/+ and (B, C) Acp4^R110C/R110C incisors (all at 20,000×). At the position where Acp4^+/+ ameloblasts have formed an enamel layer that is ~ 30 µm in thickness (7-wk incisor Level 1.5; DEJ area shown in A), the Acp4^R110C/R110C ameloblasts have only deposited an aplastic enamel layer about 6 µm thick on the DEJ (B). Abundant enamel proteins have also accumulated on top of the mineralized portion, and the distal ends of ameloblasts retain only finger-like point contacts/attachment with the mineralized surface (B). By roughly the midpoint of the secretory stage (Level 2, C), the enamel organ in Acp4^R110C/R110C mice degenerates into a disorganized mass of cells. The precise location of the DEJ becomes indistinct due to increased mineralization of the deeper parts of the aplastic enamel layer, which is now about 11 µm in thickness. Am, ameloblasts; emp, enamel matrix proteins.