title: Biomimetic synthesis of struvite with biogenic morphology and implication for pathological biomineralization.
abstract: Recent studies have found that certain urinary proteins can efficiently inhibit stone formation. These discoveries are significant for developing effective therapies for stone disease, but the inhibition mechanism of crystallization remains elusive. In the present study, polyaspartic acid (PASP) was employed as a model peptide to investigate the effect of urinary proteins on the crystallization and morphological evolution of struvite. The results demonstrate that selective adsorption/binding of PASP onto the {010} and {101} faces of struvite crystals results in arrowhead-shaped morphology, which further evolves into X-shaped and unusual tabular structures with time. Noticeably, these morphologies are reminiscent of biogenic struvite morphology. Concentration-dependent experiments show that PASP can inhibit struvite growth and the inhibitory capacity increases with increasing PASP concentration, whereas aspartic acid monomers do not show a significant effect. Considering that PASP is a structural and functional analogue of the subdomains of aspartic acid-rich proteins, our results reveal that aspartic acid-rich proteins play a key role in regulating biogenic struvite morphology, and aspartic acid residues contribute to the inhibitory capacity of urinary proteins. The potential implications of PASP for developing therapeutic agents for urinary stone disease is also discussed.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Qi-Zhi
authors.initials: QZ
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yu-Ying
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yi-Liang
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Gen-Tao
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D032701:Biomimetics / Q000379:methods*; D003460:Crystallization; D006801:Humans; D017616:Magnesium Compounds / Q000378:metabolism*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D008903:Minerals / Q000378:metabolism*; D008970:Molecular Weight; D010455:Peptides / Q000378:metabolism; D010710:Phosphates / Q000378:metabolism*; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D000069877:Struvite; D014545:Urinary Calculi / Q000473:pathology*; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D017616:Magnesium Compounds; D008903:Minerals; D010455:Peptides; D010710:Phosphates; C017645:polyaspartate; D000069877:Struvite