Microscopic observation of the special assembly mode of shell nacre has made continuous progress in bionic materials. It is considered that the key to biomimetic synthesis is to select suitable organic matter and make it self-assemble into various supramolecular structures as templates for inorganic deposition. The research of protein and protein on the control of calcium carbonate crystallization in nacre shows that nacre contains many kinds of functional protein, and nacre formed by different kinds of animals contains different kinds of protein, and each kind of protein has its unique structure and function. Protein obviously controls the nucleation, crystallization and morphology of inorganic phase in nacre, but the biomimetic mineralization experiment in vitro cannot replicate the morphology of inorganic phase in nacre. The detailed mechanism of this control is still unclear, and people's understanding of it is still in the primary stage.

The preferred orientation of aragonite crystals in nacre is one of the important reasons why nacre has excellent mechanical properties. X-ray diffraction study on nacre of Hyriopsis cumingii shell shows that there are not only strongly oriented aragonite crystals with (002) net parallel to nacre, but also strongly oriented aragonite crystals with (0 12) net parallel to nacre, and the preferred orientation of the two orientations varies greatly in different positions of the same shell.