Pathological Mineralization: The Potential of Mineralomics

Abstract

Pathological mineralization has been reported countless times in the literature and is a well-known phenomenon in the medical field for its connections to a wide range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. The minerals involved in calcification, however, have not been directly studied as extensively as the organic components of each of the pathologies. These have been studied in isolation and, for most of them, physicochemical properties are hitherto not fully known. In a parallel development, materials science methods such as electron microscopy, spectroscopy, thermal analysis, and others have been used in biology mainly for the study of hard tissues and biomaterials and have only recently been incorporated in the study of other biological systems. This review connects a range of soft tissue diseases, including breast cancer, age-related macular degeneration, aortic valve stenosis, kidney stone diseases, and Fahr’s syndrome, all of which have been associated with mineralization processes. Furthermore, it describes how physicochemical material characterization methods have been used to provide new information on such pathologies. Here, we focus on diseases that are associated with calcium-composed minerals to discuss how understanding the properties of these minerals can provide new insights on their origins, considering that different conditions and biological features are required for each type of mineral to be formed. We show that mineralomics, or the study of the properties and roles of minerals, can provide information which will help to improve prevention methods against pathological mineral build-up, which in the cases of most of the diseases mentioned in this review, will ultimately lead to new prevention or treatment methods for the diseases. Importantly, this review aims to highlight that chemical composition alone cannot fully support conclusions drawn on the nature of these minerals.

Whitlockite structures in kidney stones indicate infectious origin: a scanning electron microscopy and Synchrotron Radiation investigation

“…For the second set, containing less than 20% by weight Wk, FE-SEM was also performed for bacterial imprints to establish a possible infection process. Such a multiscale approach taking into account chemistry and morphology has already been used to develop new diagnostic tools, or to deduce the very first steps of calcification pathogenesis [54][55][56][57][58][59].…”

Single-cell RNA-seq of the stromal vascular fraction of adipose tissue reveals lineage-specific changes in cancer-related lymphedema

“…Altogether, our results indicated that the hardened tissue at the severe stage of lymphoedema may not only be attributed to fibrosis, but also to pathologic mineralization of adipose tissues, which has not been recognized before. Pathological mineralization occurs in nearly all soft tissues and is associated with diverse human diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis, but is sometimes overlooked (Tsolaki and Bertazzo, 2019). Our study highlights the aberrant differentiation or pathological mineralization of ASCs in lymphoedema, which may serve as a novel angle for treatment.…”

Accumulation of sulfur and phosphorus in the eye’s drainage system in primary open-angle glaucoma

“…Исходя из того, что по стехиометрическим данным во всех минерально-фосфатных фазах, в том числе и встречаемых в окулярных тканях, весовая доля Ca превышает долю P [11], исследуемые ткани склеры и трабекулы ретроспективно были поделены на 2 группы. Образцы с доминирующей весовой долей кальция (Ca:P>1) были определены как минеральнофосфатные.…”