Zinc-Containing Restorations Create Amorphous Biogenic Apatite at the Carious Dentin Interface: A X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) Crystal Lattice Analysis Toledano Pérez, Manuel Sánchez Aguilera, Fátima López López, Modesto Torcuato Osorio Ruiz, María Estrella Toledano Osorio, Manuel Osorio Ruiz, Raquel Dentin Zinc Mineral XRD AFM The aim of this research was to assess the ability of amalgam restorations to induce amorphous mineral precipitation at the caries-affected-dentin substrate. Sound and caries-affected dentin surfaces were subjected to both Zn-free and Zn-containing dental amalgam restorations. Specimens were submitted to thermocycling (100,000cy/5 ºC-55 ºC, 3 months). Dentin surfaces were studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM/nano-roughness), X-ray diffraction (XRD2), field emission electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy-dispersive analysis (EDX), for physical and morphological surface characterization. Zn-containing amalgam placement reduced crystallinity, crystallite size and grain size of calcium phosphate crystallites at the dentin surface. Both microstrain and nanoroughness augmented in caries-affected dentin restored with Zn-containing amalgams. Caries-affected dentin showed the shortest mineral crystallites (11.04 nm), when Zn-containing amalgams were used for restorations, probably leading to a decrease of mechanical properties which might favor crack propagation and deformation. Sound dentin restored with Zn-free amalgams exhibited a substantial increase in length of grain particles (12.44 nm) embedded into dentin crystallites. Zn-containing amalgam placement creates dentin mineralization and the resultant mineral was, utterly, amorphous in nature. Amorphous calcium phosphate will provide a local ion-rich environment which is considered favorable for in situ generation of prenucleation clusters, succeeding further dentin remineralization. 2017-06-08T07:24:01Z 2017-06-08T07:24:01Z 2016-10 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Toledano Pérez, M.; et al. Zinc-Containing Restorations Create Amorphous Biogenic Apatite at the Carious Dentin Interface: A X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) Crystal Lattice Analysis. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 22(5): 1034-1046 (2016). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/46738] 1431-9276 1435-8115 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/46738 10.1017/S1431927616011697 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Microscopy Society of America