Nanostructure, osteopontin, and mechanical properties of calcitic avian eggshell Athanasiadou, Dimitra Jiang, Wenge Goldbaum, Dina Saleem, Aroba Basu, Kaustuv Pacella, Michael S. Böhm, Corinna F. Chromik, Richard R. Hincke, Maxwell T. Rodríguez Navarro, Alejandro Vali, Hojatollah Wolf, Stephan E. Gray, Jeffrey J. Bui, Khanh Huy McKee, Marc D. Avian (and formerly dinosaur) eggshells form a hard, protective biomineralized chamber for embryonic growth—an evolutionary strategy that has existed for hundreds of millions of years. We show in the calcitic chicken eggshell how the mineral and organic phases organize hierarchically across different length scales and how variation in nanostructure across the shell thicknessmodifies its hardness, elastic modulus, and dissolution properties.We also show that the nanostructure changes during egg incubation, weakening the shell for chick hatching. Nanostructure and increased hardness were reproduced in synthetic calcite crystals grown in the presence of the prominent eggshell protein osteopontin. These results demonstrate the contribution of nanostructure to avian eggshell formation, mechanical properties, and dissolution. 2018-11-23T12:51:57Z 2018-11-23T12:51:57Z 2018-03-30 journal article D. Athanasiadou, W. Jiang, D. Goldbaum, A. Saleem, K. Basu, M. S. Pacella, C. F. Böhm, R. R. Chromik, M. T. Hincke, A. B. Rodríguez-Navarro, H. Vali, S. E. Wolf, J. J. Gray, K. H. Bui, M. D. McKee, Nanostructure, osteopontin, and mechanical properties of calcitic avian eggshell. Sci. Adv. 4, eaar3219 (2018). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/53930] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/53930 10.1126/sciadv.aar3219 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/es/ open access Atribución-NoComercial 3.0 España