Bacterial Effect on the Crystallization of Mineral Phases in a Solution Simulating Human Urine

Abstract

The effect of bacteria that present in the human urine (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus) was studied under the conditions of biomimetic synthesis. It was shown that the addition of bacteria significantly affects both the phase composition of the synthesized material and the position of crystallization boundaries of the resulting phosphate phases, which can shift toward more acidic (struvite, apatite) or toward more alkaline (brushite) conditions. Under conditions of oxalate mineralization, bacteria accelerate the nucleation of calcium oxalates by almost two times and also increase the amount of oxalate precipitates along with phosphates and stabilize the calcium oxalate dihydrate (weddellite). The multidirectional changes in the pH values of the solutions, which are the result of the interaction of all system components and the crystallization process, were analyzed. The obtained results are the scientific basis for understanding the mechanisms of bacterial involvement in stone formation within the human body and the creation of biotechnological methods that inhibit this process.

First Report of Pathogenic Bacterium Kalamiella piersonii Isolated from Urine of a Kidney Stone Patient: Draft Genome and Evidence for Role in Struvite Crystallization

“…Similar results were observed in the synthetic urine supplemented with peptone. Previous studies have also provided evidence from in vitro studies that peptone influences the growth and pH of the synthetic urine and modulates the lithogenesis in a lower pH than needed under normal conditions [ 27 ]. The bacterium was tolerant to wide range of pH (5–10) giving advantages for its survival in the fluctuating urine ecosystem.…”

“…A few studies have proposed that struvite formation by microorganisms results from the release of ammonium either by decomposition of organic material or by hydrolysis of urea by urease by the microorganism resulting in the accumulation of ammonium ions in urine [ 32 , 36 ]. However, there is limited evidence of this [ 27 ]. Our experimental results provide further evidence of the production of ammonia and media alkalization by YU22 by breaking down amino acids and peptides.…”

Dual Energy X-ray Methods for the Characterization, Quantification and Imaging of Calcification Minerals and Masses in Breast

“…The use of balanced filtering in dual energy technique was applied by Saito [29] in order to achieve a signal-to-noise ratio of 5 in the final dual energy subtracted iodine image. Although the appearance of calcifications may indicate breast cancer, the consistency of calcifications will indicate whether they are associated with malignancy or benignancy [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81]87]. Martini et al [28] worked on the differentiation of calcifications consisting of minerals found to indicate malignancy and benignancy according to literature [103][104][105].…”

“…According to the literature, calcifications are divided into Type I and Type II [69][70][71][72][73][74][75]. The calcifications of Type I are composed calcium oxalate (CaC2O4) crystals [76] and are found to be associated with benign lesions or mostly non-invasive lobular carcinoma in situ [77,78]. The calcifications of Type II are composed of calcium phosphate, mainly hydroxyapatite (Hap) crystals [76,[79][80][81] and in some cases of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ).…”

“…The calcifications of Type I are composed calcium oxalate (CaC2O4) crystals [76] and are found to be associated with benign lesions or mostly non-invasive lobular carcinoma in situ [77,78]. The calcifications of Type II are composed of calcium phosphate, mainly hydroxyapatite (Hap) crystals [76,[79][80][81] and in some cases of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ). Hydroxyapatite is associated with malignancy including carcinomas, while calcium carbonate crystals [82][83][84][85][86] with benignancy [44,45,70,87].…”