Stockholm university

While researching dolphins, SU researchers discover possible new method to improve pharmaceuticals

In the human body, crystals – made of things such as calcium or urea – form masses that can cause pain and serious health conditions, such as gout. Researchers from the Xiaodong Zou group reported a new method to control the growth of ammonium urate crystals - the substance known to cause kidney stones in dolphins.

Photo by Ádám Berkecz on Unsplash

It is known that dolpins get kidney stones, too. In order care for them, the mecanism behind the the formation of the stones  dolphins needs to be understood and investigated.

It was the most unexpected and remarkable thing to find that as you increase the concentration of urate, all of a sudden, the rate of crystallization drops to almost zero and crystals do not grow in that region.

Previously reports show that crystals associated with dolphin kidney stones consista of ammonium urate, rarely found in humans. In our recent report in Nature Communications, we discovered a method to control the crystal growth of ammonium urate by manipulating isomers of urate called tautomers.

The findings may not only help dolphins but also have implications for the pharmaceutical industry. The tautomers of urate has very small structural difference and the crystals are too small to be determined by traditional X-ray based methods. Therefore, we applied three-dimensional electron diffraction to determine the accurate crystal structure.

From the crystal structure, it was discoverd that a small fraction of urate existing as a minor tautomer can control the rate at which crystals grow to the point that they can completely block crystallization.

It was the most unexpected and remarkable thing to find that as you increase the concentration of urate, all of a sudden, the rate of crystallization drops to almost zero and crystals do not grow in that region.

Contact @SU: Taimin Yang, researcher

Link to full article in Nature Communications