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Biomineralization is a widely dispersed and highly regulated but poorly understood process by which organisms precipitate minerals from a wide variety of elements [1]. For many years, it has been hypothesized that the biological precipitation of carbonates is catalyzed by and organized on an extracellular organic matrix containing a suite of proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides [2, 3]. The structures of these molecules, their evolutionary history, and the biophysical mechanisms responsible for calcification remain enigmatic. Despite the recognition that mineralized tissues contain proteins that are unusually rich in aspartic and glutamic acids [4-6], the role of these proteins in biomineralization remains elusive [5, 6]. Here we report, for the first time, the identification, cloning, amino acid sequence, and characterization of four highly acidic proteins, derived from expression of genes obtained from the common stony coral, Stylophora pistillata. Each of these four proteins can spontaneously catalyze the precipitation of calcium carbonate in vitro. Our results demonstrate that coral acid-rich proteins (CARPs) not only bind Ca(2+) stoichiometrically but also precipitate aragonite in vitro in seawater at pH 8.2 and 7.6, via an electrostatic interaction with protons on bicarbonate anions. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that at least one of the CARPs arose from a gene fusion. Similar, highly acidic proteins appear to have evolved several times independently in metazoans through convergence. Based purely on thermodynamic grounds, the predicted change in surface ocean pH in the next decades would appear to have minimal effect on the capacity of these acid-rich proteins to precipitate carbonates., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The mechanisms of coral calcification at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels are poorly understood. In this study, we examine calcium carbonate precipitation using novel coral tissue cultures that aggregate to form "proto-polyps". Our goal is to establish an experimental system in which calcification is facilitated at the cellular level, while simultaneously allowing in vitro manipulations of the calcifying fluid. This novel coral culturing technique enables us to study the mechanisms of biomineralization and their implications for geochemical proxies. Viable cell cultures of the hermatypic, zooxanthellate coral, Stylophora pistillata, have been maintained for 6 to 8 weeks. Using an enriched seawater medium with aragonite saturation state similar to open ocean surface waters (Ω(arag)~4), the primary cell cultures assemble into "proto-polyps" which form an extracellular organic matrix (ECM) and precipitate aragonite crystals. These extracellular aragonite crystals, about 10 µm in length, are formed on the external face of the proto-polyps and are identified by their distinctive elongated crystallography and X-ray diffraction pattern. The precipitation of aragonite is independent of photosynthesis by the zooxanthellae, and does not occur in control experiments lacking coral cells or when the coral cells are poisoned with sodium azide. Our results demonstrate that proto-polyps, aggregated from primary coral tissue culture, function (from a biomineralization perspective) similarly to whole corals. This approach provides a novel tool for investigating the biophysical mechanism of calcification in these organisms.