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Pathological Calcification—A Materials Perspective

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomaterials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2020) | Viewed by 6565

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, UK
Interests: pathological mineralization; calcific diseases; mineralized tissues; calcification; mineralomics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plants, animals and humans all experience biological mineralization processes in different tissues and contexts. Mineralization is a key biological process which, under normal conditions, is responsible for the development of hard tissues, bone, cartilage and teeth, as well as their healing processes.

In this Special Issue we bring attention to a less known biological mineralization process, but with huge impact on human health: pathological mineralization. Such mineralization takes place in practically all soft tissues as a consequence of the most diverse diseases, from dementia to cardiac conditions. In general, pathological mineralization can take the form of a wide range of materials, such as calcium phosphates, calcium carbonates, calcium oxalates and iron oxides (depending on the issue affected and type of disease).

For most calcific diseases, the causes, origins and mechanism of formation of the inorganic material in the affected soft tissue are not yet known. Only rarely have materials science methods and perspectives been applied to study calcific diseases, and research on pathological mineralization has until now been strongly rooted in biological and medical sciences, which tend not to focus on the inorganic material component of the disease.

Full papers, communications and reviews are all welcome. Representative topics include but are not limited to: cardiovascular calcification, cancer calcification, ectopic calcification, macular degenerative disease, bioinorganic material science, biomineralization associate human health, mineralomics, metallomics, inorganic biochemistry, ectopic mineralization, stenosis, calcium metabolism and phosphate metabolism.

Dr. Sergio Bertazzo
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • pathological calcification
  • calcification
  • calcific diseases
  • mineralomics

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

22 pages, 3746 KiB  
Review
Pathological Mineralization: The Potential of Mineralomics
by Elena Tsolaki and Sergio Bertazzo
Materials 2019, 12(19), 3126; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12193126 - 25 Sep 2019
Cited by 36 | Viewed by 6180
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pathological Calcification—A Materials Perspective)
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