Organization of extracellularly mineralized tissues: a comparative study of biological crystal growth

Biological mineralization processes are extremely diverse and, to date, it is an act of faith rather than an established principle that organisms utilize common mechanisms for forming crystals. A systematic analysis of the structural organization, as far as possible at the molecular level, of five different extracellularly mineralized tissues is presented to demonstrate that at least these mineralization processes are all part of the same continuum. The degrees of control exercised over crystal nucleation and crystal growth modulation are the basic variables. The five tissues, extracellularly mineralizing algae, radial and granular foraminifera, mammalian bone, mammalian enamel, and mollusk shell nacre, probably span the entire spectrum. Their crystal shapes, sizes, and the relations between the mineral phase and the organic phase, are primarily used to assess probable degrees of control exercised over crystal nucleation and modulation. Three different types of nucleation processes can be recognized: nonspecific, stereochemical, and epitaxial. Modulation of crystal growth after nucleation is either absent, achieved by adsorption of macromolecules onto specific crystal faces, or occurs by the prepositioning of matrix surfaces which interrupt crystal growth. The tissues in which active control is exercised over crystal growth all contain similar types of acidic matrix macromolecules. Significantly, the framework matrix macromolecules are all quite different and hence probably perform some tissue-specific functions. The study shows that there is a common basis for understanding these mineralization processes which is reflected in the nature of the protein-crystal interactions which occur in each tissue.     

Ultrasonic characterization of biological tissues

Ultrasonic imaging has become increasingly important as a diagnostic tool in medicine because it is noninvasive and it can provide valuable information otherwise unattainable. However, at present, clinical interpretation of an ultrasonic image still mostly relies on recognition of boundaries and positional relationship of anatomical structures and a subjective analysis of the distribution or texture of echo amplitudes. Other potentially useful information carried back by the echoes is completely discarded. The aim of ultrasonic tissue characterization research is to develop methods to extract additional information from the returned echoes so that tissue pathology or abnormality can be reliably identifed and severity of the pathology objectively assessed with quantitative criteria. A number of ultrasonic parameters including acoustic velocity, impedance, attentuation and scattering, have been utilized in attempting to achieve this goal. In this paper, recent progress in this research will be discussed and relevant results presented.     

Mechanical properties of soft biological tissues

Odd published data concerning the shear mechanical properties of some soft tissues in norm and pathology are reviewed.     

Determination of linamarin in biological tissues

A new paper chromatography method for determination of intact cyanogenic glucoside linamarin is based on a reaction with p-anisaldehyde at 85°C; the reaction produces a pink color which is brightly fluorescent under long-wave uv light.     

Lipid peroxidation products in biological tissues

Over the past twenty-years of lipid peroxidation research in this laboratory, considerable effort has gone into development of new methods, with emphasis on measurement of lipid-soluble fluorophores and the volatile hydrocarbons ethane and pentane. Application of these and other methods has been made to biological materials and living animals. Although the various methodologies used in lipid peroxidation research do not necessarily measure the same class of products, and although agreement of results is not always 100%, there is substantial documentation of good correlations between measurements; for example, of trace volatile hydrocarbons with thiobarbituric acid-reacting substances, of pentane production with dietary and/or tissue vitamin E content, and of pentane production with lipid-soluble fluorophores accumulated in spleen as a function of oxidant stress. Individual methodologies do have their inherent limitations. However, measurements of multiple products and their correlations have added significantly to the base of information on biological damage and protection by dietary antioxidants against nutritional and toxicological insults to tissues, cells, and macromolecules as a result of peroxidative and oxidative reactions.     

Heterogeneous growth of plant tissues

KORN, R., 1993. Heterogeneous growth of plant tissues. Heterogeneous growth is defined as different rates or patterns of growth in adjacent tissue regions, in contrast to homogeneous growth where a region expresses a uniform rate or pattern of growth. Heterogeneous growth is inspected in a variety of plant tissues and the pattern of expansion is characterized for each. In the case of epidermal cell proliferation, different growth rates for cell plates and old walls lead to the feature of coordinated growth in which slow growth of the former is compensated for by a faster rate of the latter. Examples include leaf epidermal cells above veins growing differently from those above areole regions, and pairs of guard cells of stomata ceasing to expand before other epidermal cells. In the alga Coleochaete only marginal walls grow, and at different rates around the colony, to generate a fractal, stochastic type of coordinated growth. In the fern gametophyte there are complex gradients of differential growth rates. Epidermal cells of apices are often of mixed growth, as cells at the summit undergo two dimensional expansion while cells along the flanks express one dimensional expansion. Coordinated growth requires matched rates where the constraining effect of the slower growing region is compensated for by a faster rate in an encircling region compared to the average rate of the overall tissue. Mixed and differential growth patterns do not necessarily create constraints and so lead to smooth tissue expansion. Emergence of some constraints leads to breaking of symmetry and disruptive growth as in the appearance of new axes found in organs and epidermal derivatives. In planar development heterogeneous growth appears to be the rule, and homogeneous growth the exception.     

Cell mechanotransduction and interactions with biological tissues

The biomechanical mechanisms involved in the processes of tissue remodeling and adaptation are reviewed with emphasis on mechanotransduction at the cellular level. New theoretical models associated with experimental rheological techniques are briefly commented.     

Anomalous diffusion of water in biological tissues.

This article deals with the characterization of biological tissues and their pathological alterations. For this purpose, diffusion is measured by NMR in the fringe field of a large superconductor with a field gradient of 50 T/m, which is rather homogenous and stable. It is due to the unprecedented properties of the gradient that we are able not only to determine the usual diffusion coefficient, but also to observe the pronounced Non-Debye feature of the relaxation function due to cellular structure. The dynamics of the probability density follow a stretched exponential or Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts function. In the long time limit the Fourier transform of the probability density follows a long-tail Lévy function, whose asymptotic is related to the fractal dimension of the underlying cellular structure. Some of the properties of Lévy walk statistics are discussed and its potential importance in understanding certain biophysical phenomena like diffusion processes in biological tissues are pointed out. We present and discuss for the first time NMR data giving evidence for Lévy processes that capture the essential features of the observed power law (scaling) dynamics of water diffusion in fresh tissue specimens: carcinomas, fibrous mastopathies, adipose and liver tissues.     

Towards an analytical model of soft biological tissues

In the past years, soft-tissue modelling research has seen substantial developments, a significant part of which can be ascribed to the refinement of numerical techniques, such as Finite Element analysis. A large class of physico-mechanical properties can be effectively simulated and predictions can be made for a variety of phenomena. However, there is still much that can be conceptually explored by means of fundamental theoretical analysis. In the past few years, driven by our interest in articular cartilage mechanics, we have developed theoretical microstructural models for linear elasticity and permeability that accounted for the presence and arrangement of collagen fibres in cartilage. In this paper, we investigate analytically the non-linear elasticity of soft tissues with collagen fibres arranged according to a given distribution of orientation, a problem that, aside from the case of fibres aligned in a finite number of distinct directions, has been treated exclusively numerically in the literature. We show that, for the case of a tissue with complex fibre arrangement, such as articular cartilage, the theoretical framework commonly used leads to an integral expression of the elastic strain energy potential. The present model is a first attempt in the development of a unified analytical microstructural model for non-linear elasticity and permeability of hydrated, fibre-reinforced soft tissues.     

Problems of structural and functional identification of biological tissues

The theoretical methods of identification of topological and functional parameters for biological tissues, such as myocardium, are considered. Among the unknown topological parameters are the dimension and connectivity of a network, and the unknown functional parameters include the electrical resistance of the cellular membrane and cytoplasm. Experimentally known data are the sizes of cells (length and diameter), the input resistance of tissue, and also the field of electrical potential formed by a "dot" current source (by an intracellular microelectrode).     

Determination of trace boron in microsamples of biological tissues

A benign-by-design method for the determination of boron (B) in microsamples of biological tissues was developed. This is a simple, automated, microdigestion method. Use of reagents and generation of waste are minimized, and the use of toxic/hazardous reagents is eliminated as compared to currently available B methodology. Microsamples are accommodated by the method; 100–400 mg sam ples were used in this study. B is determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICPAES) at 249.678 nm. The instrument detection limit for B is 0.01 Μg/mL. Interference studies have been investigated for 21 common elements. Over 250 analyses of standard reference materials were analyzed during the study dura tion. Recoveries for a series of biological tissues, both plant and ani mal, ranged from 82–104%.     

Molecular modeling of immersion optical clearing of biological tissues

The interaction of six low-molecular tissue-clearing agents (1,2 and 1,3-propanediol, ethylene glycol, glycerol, xylitol, sorbitol) with the collagen mimetic peptide (GPH)₃ was studied by applying the methods of classical molecular dynamics (GROMACS), molecular docking (AutoDock Vina) and quantum chemistry (PM6 and B3LYP). The spatial configurations of intermolecular complexes were determined and interaction energies calculated. The dependence of the volume occupied by the collagen peptide on the clearing agent concentration in an aqueous solution was calculated. This dependence is not linear, and has a maximum for almost all the agents in the study. The correlations between the optical clearing potential and intermolecular interactions parameters, such as the time of an agent being in a hydrogen-bonded state, and the relative probability of formation of double hydrogen bonds and interaction energies, were determined. Using the correlations determined, we predicted the numeric value of the optical clearing potential of dextrose molecules in rat skin, which correlates with experimental data. A molecular mechanism of tissue optical clearing within the post-diffusion stage is suggested.

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Graphical abstract The molecular modeling of the interaction between clearing agents and collagen

     

Problems of structural and functional identification of biological tissues

Theoretical methods for identification of topological and functional parameters of biological tissues (e.g., myocardium) are considered. Unknown topological parameters include the network dimension and connectivity, while unknown functional parameters include the resistivity of the cellular membrane and cytoplasm. The cell size (length and diameter), the input resistance of the tissue, and the fundamental electric potential field formed by a “point” current source (intracellular microelectrode) are treated as experimentally known parameters.