Biomineralizations: insights and prospects from crustaceans

Abstract

For growing, crustaceans have to molt cyclically because of the presence of a rigid exoskeleton. Most of the crustaceans harden their cuticle not only by sclerotization, like all the arthropods, but also by calcification. All the physiology of crustaceans, including the calcification process, is then linked to molting cycles. This means for these animals to find regularly a source of calcium ions quickly available just after ecdysis. The sources of calcium used are diverse, ranging from the environment where the animals live to endogenous calcium deposits cyclically elaborated by some of them. As a result, crustaceans are submitted to an important and energetically demanding calcium turnover throughout their life. The mineralization process occurs by precipitation of calcium carbonate within an organic matrix network of chitin-proteins fibers. Both crystalline and stabilized amorphous polymorphs of calcium carbonate are found in crustacean biominerals. Furthermore, Crustacea is the only phylum of animals able to elaborate and resorb periodically calcified structures. Notably for these two previous reasons, crustaceans are more and more extensively studied and considered as models of choice in the biomineralization research area.

Rare earths, zirconium and hafnium distribution in coastal areas: The example of Sabella spallanzanii (Gmelin, 1791)

“…Although the ability of REE to be transported through cellular membranes along Ca 2þ ionic channels has been recognised (Goecke et al, 2015 and references therein), this mechanism is not considered the main process determining the bioaccumulation of REE, Zr and Hf in biological tissues. On the contrary, the uptake of REE, Zr and Hf is determined by the significant affinity of these metal ions towards organic surfaces (Balistrieri et al, 1981;Sholkovitz et al, 1994;Kuss et al, 2001;Censi et al, 2010;Christenson and Schijf, 2011;Luquet, 2012;Bosco-Santos et al, 2017). The uptake of Zr, Hf and REE in S. spallanzanii can be easily favoured by the filtration role of the branchial crown, whereas Zr, Hf and REE scavenging in tube samples could occur by way of the bio-polymeric nature of the mucus, which provides a wide spectrum of available binding sites.…”

Abundance and Diversity of Soil Macrofauna in Native Forest, Eucalyptus Plantations, Perennial Pasture, Integrated Crop-Livestock, and No-Tillage Cropping

“…The correlation between soil Ca with macrofauna was probably due to the high physiological requirement for Ca of some arthropods to maintain the exoskeleton (molting process) (Schoefield et al, 2003;Luquet, 2012). Lower BD can be ascribed to advantages resulting from the presence of other organisms in the soil structure, mainly by increasing soil particle movement, mixing this material with OM, with direct and indirect participation in processes of aeration, formation of macro and microaggregates, and mineralization of OM, as well as benefitting the edaphic biota, thus enhancing plant development and growth (Bartz et al, 2011;Hedde et al, 2015).…”

A crayfish molar tooth protein with putative mineralized exoskeletal chitinous matrix c properties

“…As in vertebrates (Fujisawa and Tamura, 2012), skeletal proteins also play vital roles in mineral formation in invertebrates Luquet, 2012). Previous in vitro experiments identified crustacean proteins thought to be associated with calcium carbonate calcification (Nagasawa, 2011).…”

“…Unlike the exoskeleton, the crayfish molar is assembled and mineralized during pre-molt (Tynyakov et al, 2015). Similarly to crustacean cuticle, the process of crayfish molar formation is entirely extracellular and presumably controlled by proteins, lipids, polysaccharides, low-molecular weight molecules and calcium salts (Willis, 1987;Lowenstam and Weiner, 1989;Horst and Freeman, 1993;Luquet, 2012).…”