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Kidney stones collected from different hospitals in Chennai, south India were analyzed by PIXE with 3MeV protons. The matrix was calcium oxalate and mixture of calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate. Light elements present in minor concentration were P, Cl. Trace elements such as V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Sr, Zr & Mo were also present in the stones. Significant amount of Zr was found in one of the samples, Pb and Cd were not present in any of the stones analyzed.

Urinary stone disease is a common disease and has a high rate of recurrence. There is no ideal long-term medical treatment to prevent the recurrence of urinary stones. Wu-Ling-San (WLS) formula has been used for centuries in China for long-term treatment of urological diseases. However, no pharmacological studies have been conducted to evaluate its effect on urinary stone disease. Therefore, using a photospectrometer, we studied the effects of WLS on nucleation, growth and aggregation of calcium oxalate in vitro. The results showed that WLS extract significantly slowed the speed of calcium oxalate (CaOx) crystal nucleation. WLS extracts at concentrations of 6.25, 12.5, 25, and 50 mg/ml inhibited nucleation of calcium oxalate crystallization by 344, 387, 543, and 943%, respectively. WLS extracts did not inhibit the growth of CaOx crystallization; however, WLS extracts at concentrations of 12.5 and 25 mg/ml significantly inhibited the aggregation of CaOx crystallization by 74.24% and 75.05%, respectively. WLS extract at a concentration of 50 mg/ml inhibited CaOx aggregation by 92.49%. In conclusion, our results indicate that WLS extract inhibited calcium oxalate nucleation and aggregation, and may have the potential to prevent stone recurrence.

The conversion from one assembly structure to other composite assembly structures is valuable to both theoretical research and actual application in the nano/micromaterials science. In this paper, firstly, the flower-like calcium oxalate assembly structure was synthesized using a supramolecule template; then, through a facile process, the calcium oxalate was converted to a sphere-cluster-like core/shell CaC₂O₄/CaWO₄ nanocomposite assembly structure. The converted product remained the basic structure of original product, and possessed some new optical properties such as fluorescence, etc.

In this study, the adsorption differences of different kinds of amino acids (acidic Lglutamic acid (L-Glu), neutral L-threonine (L-Thr) and alkaline L-histidine (L-His)) onto calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) and calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD) crystals with sizes of 50 nm, 100 nm, 1 μm, 3 μm and 10 μm were investigated using spectrophotometry. The study of adsorption differences of amino acids on calcium oxalate has rarely been conducted; hence, we studied it with different pH values onto COM and COD crystals. The amount of adsorbed amino acids was determined using the depletion method and the centrifugation method was applied. At pH=7.3, COM crystals mainly adsorbed acidic L-Glu and have less adsorption to L-Thr and L-His, while COD mainly adsorbed alkaline L-His. Results of this study showed that when the size of crystal increases, the adsorption amount of crystals decreased. This was attributed to the decreases of specific surface area of larger crystals. The adsorption amount of COM was greater than that of COD with the same size because the specific surface area of COM is greater than COD. Our results help to further illustrate the formation mechanism of calcium oxalate stones and provide inspiration for inhibiting its recurrence.

This study aims to compare the cytotoxicity and adhesion of calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) and dehydrate (COD) crystals with a size of 5 μm toward human kidney proximal tubular epithelial (HKC) cells so as to reveal the mechanism of kidney stone formation at cellular level. The measurement of cell viability and Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) content were used to quantitatively analyze cell injury induced by COM and COD crystals; cell mortality was measured by propidium iodide (PI) staining; the adhesion of crystals on cell surface was observed by SEM. The decrease of cell viability and increase of LDH release of HKC cells caused by COM and COD were concentration-dependent in crystal concentration range of 100∼1600 μg/mL. COM caused more serious injury in HKC than COD. The adhesion amount of COM was significantly greater than COD crystal. The damage of micron COM was larger than COD, and COM was more easily aggregated on HKC. The results in this paper indicated that the presence of COM crystals in urine was more likely to increase the risk of stone formation than COD crystals.