Biological Niches within Human Calcified Aortic Valves: Towards Understanding of the Pathological Biomineralization Process

Figure 4

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs of submicrometer granular units forming different crystalline morphologies. (a) Higher magnification of semispherical deposits shown in Figure 2(b). Each semispherical deposit is formed by rod-shaped structures with a radial arrangement. Each rod-shaped structure is formed by submicrometer granular units, stacked on each other. (b) Lamellar crystals formed by submicrometer granular units. (c) Higher magnification of micrometric spherical particles shown in Figure 2(c). Smaller units are visible. Scale bar is 100 nm. Scale bars are placed in different ways because images were obtained by two different scanning electron microscopes: (a) and (b) are from Hitachi S4000 and (c) is from Zeiss DSM 940.

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