(n.) A pearly substance which lines the interior of many shells, and is most perfect in the mother-of-pearl. [Written also nacker and naker.] See Pearl, and Mother-of-pearl.
Example Sentences:
(1) When nacreous shell produced by the marine oyster Pinctada maxima, used as a biomaterial in oral surgery, is implanted in human bone, new bone formation occurs, resulting in a tight welding of the bone to the nacre [16].
(2) Dilute suspensions of normal erythrocytes exhibit a pearl-like sheen (nacre) when subjected to flow.
(3) Nacre implanted in vivo in bone is osteogenic suggesting that it may possess factor(s) which stimulate bone formation.
(4) These observations are discussed namely in relation to the problem of structural identification of the EDTA soluble fraction of the nacre conchiolin.
(5) To test this hypothesis, we have evaluated the effect of the simultaneous presence of bone and nacre on human osteoblasts in vitro.
(6) In other areas (along the main course of the mantle), transient adhesions between the outer mantle epithelial cells and the nacre appear to temporally further compartmentalize the extrapallial fluid possibly as a prerequisite for the initial crystallization phenomenon.
(7) Induction of mineralization appeared preferentially in bundles of osteoblasts surrounding the nacre chips.
(8) Nacre chips (1 mm3) were placed at approximately 1 mm distance from a similarly sized bone chip on a layer of first passage human osteoblasts.
(9) The five tissues, extracellularly mineralizing algae, radial and granular foraminifera, mammalian bone, mammalian enamel, and mollusk shell nacre, probably span the entire spectrum.
(10) The degree of nacre can be measured by comparing the intensity of scattered red light at an angle of 45 degrees for the flowing system to that when the effect has disappeared.
(11) The results demonstrated that nacre has strong osteogenic effects on human osteoblasts when placed in proximity to bone in vitro.
(12) These findings are consistent with the possibility that nacre adjacent to bone can locally stimulate osteogenic activity.
(13) These results demonstrate that a complete sequence of bone formation is reproduced when human osteoblasts are cultured in the presence of nacre.
(14) In addition, under the conditions of culture used, nacre can also promote the formation by osteoblasts of a structure with characteristics similar to nacre (e.g., lamellar organic matrix mineralized with aragonite, as demonstrated by Laser Raman Spectroscopy).
(15) Osteoblasts proliferated and were clearly attracted by nacre chips to which they attached.
(16) A woman exposed to the dust of sea-snail shells during the manufacture of nacre buttons had clinical and immunological features typical of hypersensitivity pneumonitis; however, transbronchial lung biopsy showed alveolar-septal amyloidosis.
(17) Nacre chips were placed on a layer of first passage human osteoblasts.
(18) The present study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that nacre can induce mineralization by human osteoblasts in vitro.