A research team led by Prof. Junbo Gong at Tianjin University collaborated with researchers from the University of Houston, USA, and discovered a new type of crystallization inhibitor. The inhibitor can effectively inhibit the growth of crystals that induce the formation of urate calculus, posing a promising future for renal calculus treatment. The research findings were published in Nature Communication, an international authoritative journal.
Renal calculus is a disease commonly found in the urinary system. It has no obvious early symptoms but in worse cases, may cause hematuresis, renal colic, or even the damage of kidney function and uremia. When kidney stones enter the ureter, urethra or bladder, they will form ureteral stones, urinary stones or bladder stones, bringing great pain to patients and seriously affecting people’s lives and health.
Kidney stones are crystal aggregates formed as a result of supersaturation of the inorganic or organic salts in the urine. Crystallization inhibition is well recognized as an important approach for prevention and treatment of this disease as it can slow down or even block the formation of renal calculus. Traditional calculus inhibitors are mainly obtained from natural herbs or fruit extracts. To obtain these “crystallization inhibitors”, patients have to take drugs or health-care food for a long period.
In collaboration with Prof. Jeffrey Rimer's team at the University of Houston, Prof. Junbo Gong and Dr. Weiwei Tang from the National Engineering Research Center of Industry Crystallization Technology at Tianjin University discovered for the first time that the keto-enol form of urate which exists as a tautomer can be an efficient “native growth inhibitor”.
This new inhibitor can produce “self-inhibition” crystallization at a specific concentration, which suppresses or even completely hinders growth of urate crystals, providing a new idea for the prevention and treatment of urate calculus. Although further research and development is imperative to achieve this therapeutic pathway, the finding holds broad research prospects and medical value.
“The efficiency of drugs is closely relevant to their dissolution rate in the human body. In the light of this finding, we have also found an important rule that the dissolution rate of drugs would be significantly effected when tautomers are incorporated inside crystals as defects.” said Dr. Weiwei Tang, the first author of this research and a lecturer from the School of Chemical Engineering at Tianjin University, “This marks not only a great advancement toward the mechanism and regulation of pathological crystallization in kidney stones, but also a scientific and theoretical guide for the quality control of pharmaceuticals and the development of industrial crystallization processes. ”
By Ma Ziyu
Editor: Eva Yin
