TY - JOUR

T1 - Indications that Amorphous Calcium Carbonates Occur in Pathological Mineralisation—A Urinary Stone from a Guinea Pig

AU - Gebauer, Denis

AU - Jansson, Kjell

AU - Oliveberg, Mikael

AU - Hedin, Niklas

N1 - Funding information: Acknowledgments: D.G. is a Research Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz and is supported by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie. N.H. thanks the Institute Excellence Center CODIRECT for funds. We thank Mia Winge for providing the urinary stone. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

PY - 2018/2/27

Y1 - 2018/2/27

N2 - Calcium carbonate is an abundant biomineral that is of great importance in industrial or geological contexts. In recent years, many studies of the precipitation of CaCO 3 have shown that amorphous precursors and intermediates are widespread in the biomineralization processes and can also be exploited in bio-inspired materials chemistry. In this work, the thorough investigation of a urinary stone of a guinea pig suggests that amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) can play a role in pathological mineralization. Importantly, certain analytical techniques that are often applied in the corresponding analyses are sensitive only to crystalline CaCO 3 and can misleadingly exclude the relevance of calcium carbonate during the formation of urinary stones. Our analyses suggest that ACC is the major constituent of the particular stone studied, which possibly precipitated on struvite nuclei. Minor amounts of urea, other stable inorganics, and minor organic inclusions are observed as well.

AB - Calcium carbonate is an abundant biomineral that is of great importance in industrial or geological contexts. In recent years, many studies of the precipitation of CaCO 3 have shown that amorphous precursors and intermediates are widespread in the biomineralization processes and can also be exploited in bio-inspired materials chemistry. In this work, the thorough investigation of a urinary stone of a guinea pig suggests that amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) can play a role in pathological mineralization. Importantly, certain analytical techniques that are often applied in the corresponding analyses are sensitive only to crystalline CaCO 3 and can misleadingly exclude the relevance of calcium carbonate during the formation of urinary stones. Our analyses suggest that ACC is the major constituent of the particular stone studied, which possibly precipitated on struvite nuclei. Minor amounts of urea, other stable inorganics, and minor organic inclusions are observed as well.

KW - Amorphous calcium carbonate

KW - Guinea pig

KW - Pathological mineralization

KW - Struvite

KW - Urinary stones

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042702726&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/min8030084

DO - 10.3390/min8030084

M3 - Article

VL - 8

JO - Minerals

JF - Minerals

SN - 2075-163X

IS - 3

M1 - 84

ER -