Post by skytroll on Aug 6, 2006 9:54:54 GMT -5
Found this and am wondering if these are coming from the plants.
The thing that got me was the calcium oxalate.
waynesword.palomar.edu/mucuna.htm
A project:
Exposure of renal epithelial cells in culture to oxalate and calcium oxalate crystals also induces a production of these macromolecules. In addition, a variety of other genes such as c-myc are also turned on. Therefore we propose to further study the effects that oxalate and calcium oxalate crystals might have on other genes in the kidney. We will induce CaOx nephrolithiasis in mice and examine the kidneys for changes in gene expression during hyperoxaluria and calcium oxalate crystal deposition
SOURCE: www.genomics.mcg.edu/niddkbtc/project6.htm
CHRYSTAL IMAGES;
www.axiomvetlab.com/Crystal%20Images.html
This is fascinating: and could indicate what Leeawenhouk....was talking of way back..........
The Secret Life Of Plant Crystals
Microscopic view of plant tissue reveals a hidden world of calcium oxalate crystals of diverse shapes
Ivan Amato
INTERACTIVE PHOTO GALLERY
Botanic Crystal Fashion Show
* Macromedia Flash Player 8 is required to view interactive graphic.
On Feb. 24, 2003, the manager of a cafeteria in Chicago contacted the city's Department of Health to report a spate of illnesses in people who had eaten at the facility three days earlier. Symptoms included burning and stinging in the mouth, difficulty in swallowing, and facial swelling. One person had enough trouble breathing to be admitted to an intensive care unit. For some, symptoms lasted for weeks.
In the ensuing investigation, health department researchers interviewed the cafeteria's staff and inspected the kitchen. Later, scientists at the Food & Drug Administration's Forensic Chemistry Center in Cincinnati conducted analyses of the "Chinese braised vegetable" entrée that all of the 10 affected people had eaten. Last year, in the journal Clinical Toxicology (2005, 1, 17), the team reported what they found: The entrée contained tiny javelin-shaped crystals known as raphides, and it was these crystals that most likely caused the troubling symptoms. "To our knowledge, this is the first reported foodborne disease outbreak associated with exposure to raphides," the researchers stated.
Raphides? Little known beyond a cadre of botanists, chemists, forensic investigators, and others interested in the interface of biology and crystals, raphides are one of several crystal forms of calcium oxalate found in plants. The biological functions of these crystals, which typically grow within individual cells, are still not completely understood.
"Seventy-five percent of flowering plants make one or more kinds of the crystals, and they form in specific places in tissues and organs," says Iowa State University's Harry T. (Jack) Horner, who has been studying calcium oxalate crystallization in plants for decades. Some plants make prismatic crystals, akin to miniaturized sugar grains. Others make "crystal sand" with less regular particle shapes that are shaped like little tetrahedrons. By far the most spectacular crystals are the ones known as druses. They look like microscopic carnations, but their rigid petals probably are sharp enough to lacerate the mouths of marauding insects.
That possibility strongly suggests to some researchers that one evolutionarily valuable trait of these crystals is to make it unpleasant, even downright dangerous, for a would-be herbivore to eat the plants. One plant known for its abundance of calcium oxalate crystals is dumbcane. Those who chew on it find that their mouth and tongue swell so much that it is painful and hard to talk.
Some raphides form within pressurized capsulelike cells that, when pierced or bitten into, forcibly expel the raphides and cell contents. In some plants, these raphides even have grooved faces that help to channel toxins made by the cell into tiny wounds created by the expelled crystals, notes molecular biologist Paul A. Nakata of the Department of Agriculture's Children's Nutrition Research Center, housed at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Last June in the Annual Review of Plant Biology, (2005, 56, 41), he and the late Vincent R. Franceschi of Washington State University provided an extensive status report on what is and is not known about calcium oxalate in plants.
Although the presence of calcium oxalate crystals was first described in plants by pioneer microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the late 1600s, those few who study these crystals are quick to note that the structures' roles in plants, how plants manufacture the oxalate molecules that end up in the crystals, and how the crystals form remain open questions. "Most of us are interested in what factors control crystal cell development, and that gets down to the cellular, genetic, and molecular levels," Horner says......
....more at SOURCE:
pubs.acs.org/cen/science/84/8406sci1.html
What do you all think?
Skytroll
The thing that got me was the calcium oxalate.
waynesword.palomar.edu/mucuna.htm
A project:
Exposure of renal epithelial cells in culture to oxalate and calcium oxalate crystals also induces a production of these macromolecules. In addition, a variety of other genes such as c-myc are also turned on. Therefore we propose to further study the effects that oxalate and calcium oxalate crystals might have on other genes in the kidney. We will induce CaOx nephrolithiasis in mice and examine the kidneys for changes in gene expression during hyperoxaluria and calcium oxalate crystal deposition
SOURCE: www.genomics.mcg.edu/niddkbtc/project6.htm
CHRYSTAL IMAGES;
www.axiomvetlab.com/Crystal%20Images.html
This is fascinating: and could indicate what Leeawenhouk....was talking of way back..........
The Secret Life Of Plant Crystals
Microscopic view of plant tissue reveals a hidden world of calcium oxalate crystals of diverse shapes
Ivan Amato
INTERACTIVE PHOTO GALLERY
Botanic Crystal Fashion Show
* Macromedia Flash Player 8 is required to view interactive graphic.
On Feb. 24, 2003, the manager of a cafeteria in Chicago contacted the city's Department of Health to report a spate of illnesses in people who had eaten at the facility three days earlier. Symptoms included burning and stinging in the mouth, difficulty in swallowing, and facial swelling. One person had enough trouble breathing to be admitted to an intensive care unit. For some, symptoms lasted for weeks.
In the ensuing investigation, health department researchers interviewed the cafeteria's staff and inspected the kitchen. Later, scientists at the Food & Drug Administration's Forensic Chemistry Center in Cincinnati conducted analyses of the "Chinese braised vegetable" entrée that all of the 10 affected people had eaten. Last year, in the journal Clinical Toxicology (2005, 1, 17), the team reported what they found: The entrée contained tiny javelin-shaped crystals known as raphides, and it was these crystals that most likely caused the troubling symptoms. "To our knowledge, this is the first reported foodborne disease outbreak associated with exposure to raphides," the researchers stated.
Raphides? Little known beyond a cadre of botanists, chemists, forensic investigators, and others interested in the interface of biology and crystals, raphides are one of several crystal forms of calcium oxalate found in plants. The biological functions of these crystals, which typically grow within individual cells, are still not completely understood.
"Seventy-five percent of flowering plants make one or more kinds of the crystals, and they form in specific places in tissues and organs," says Iowa State University's Harry T. (Jack) Horner, who has been studying calcium oxalate crystallization in plants for decades. Some plants make prismatic crystals, akin to miniaturized sugar grains. Others make "crystal sand" with less regular particle shapes that are shaped like little tetrahedrons. By far the most spectacular crystals are the ones known as druses. They look like microscopic carnations, but their rigid petals probably are sharp enough to lacerate the mouths of marauding insects.
That possibility strongly suggests to some researchers that one evolutionarily valuable trait of these crystals is to make it unpleasant, even downright dangerous, for a would-be herbivore to eat the plants. One plant known for its abundance of calcium oxalate crystals is dumbcane. Those who chew on it find that their mouth and tongue swell so much that it is painful and hard to talk.
Some raphides form within pressurized capsulelike cells that, when pierced or bitten into, forcibly expel the raphides and cell contents. In some plants, these raphides even have grooved faces that help to channel toxins made by the cell into tiny wounds created by the expelled crystals, notes molecular biologist Paul A. Nakata of the Department of Agriculture's Children's Nutrition Research Center, housed at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Last June in the Annual Review of Plant Biology, (2005, 56, 41), he and the late Vincent R. Franceschi of Washington State University provided an extensive status report on what is and is not known about calcium oxalate in plants.
Although the presence of calcium oxalate crystals was first described in plants by pioneer microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the late 1600s, those few who study these crystals are quick to note that the structures' roles in plants, how plants manufacture the oxalate molecules that end up in the crystals, and how the crystals form remain open questions. "Most of us are interested in what factors control crystal cell development, and that gets down to the cellular, genetic, and molecular levels," Horner says......
....more at SOURCE:
pubs.acs.org/cen/science/84/8406sci1.html
What do you all think?
Skytroll