Crustaceans, like most mineralized invertebrates, adopted calcium carbonate mineralization for bulk skeleton reinforcement. Here, we show that a major part of the crustacean class Malacostraca (which includes lobsters, crayfishes, prawns and shrimps) shifted toward the formation of calcium phosphate as the main mineral at specified locations of the mandibular teeth. In these structures, calcium...

The majority of human kidney stones are comprised of multiple calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) crystals encasing a calcium phosphate nucleus. The physiochemical mechanism of nephrolithiasis has not been well determined on the molecular level; this is crucial to the control and prevention of renal stone formation. This work investigates the role of phosphate ions on the formation of calcium oxa...

The EPXH2 gene encodes for the soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), which has two distinct enzyme activities: epoxide hydrolase (Cterm-EH) and phosphatase (Nterm-phos). The Cterm-EH is involved in the metabolism of epoxides from arachidonic acid and other unsaturated fatty acids, endogenous chemical mediators that play important roles in blood pressure regulation, cell growth, inflammation and pain...

The time course for the activation of glycogen phosphorylase (Phos) and pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) and their allosteric regulators was determined in human skeletal muscle during repeated bouts of maximal exercise. Six subjects completed three 30-s bouts of maximal isokinetic cycling separated by 4-min recovery periods. Muscle biopsies were taken at rest and at 6, 15, and 30 s of exercise duri...

Casein phosphopeptides-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP) is a bioactive agent with a base of milk products, which has been formulated from two parts: casein phosphopeptides (CPP) and amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP). CPP was produced from milk protein casein and has a remarkable ability to stabilize calcium phosphate in solution and to substantially increase the level of calcium phosphate ...

The majority of invertebrate skeletal tissues are composed of the most stable crystalline polymorphs of CaCO(3), calcite, and/or aragonite. Here we describe a composite skeletal tissue from an ascidian in which amorphous and crystalline calcium carbonate coexist in well-defined domains separated by an organic sheath. Each biogenic mineral phase has a characteristic Mg content (5.9 and 1.7 mol %...

Porous tablets of crystalline calcium carbonate were formed upon sintering of a precursor powder of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) under compressive stress (20 MPa) at relatively low temperatures (120–400 uC), induced by pulsed direct currents. Infrared spectroscopy ascertained the amorphous nature of the precursor powders. At temperatures of 120–350 uC and rates of temperature increase of 2...

We propose a method to predict the value of the external strain where a generic amorphous solid will fail by a plastic response (i.e., an irreversible deformation), solely on the basis of measurements of the nonlinear elastic moduli. While usually considered fundamentally different, with the elastic properties describing reversible phenomena and plastic failure epitomizing irreversible behavior...

The EPXH2 gene encodes for the soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), a homodimeric enzyme with each monomer containing two domains with distinct activities. The C-terminal domain, containing the epoxide hydrolase activity (Cterm-EH), is involved in the metabolism of arachidonic acid epoxides, endogenous chemical mediators that play important roles in blood pressure regulation, cell growth, and infla...