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Glycolytic intermediates induce amorphous calcium carbonate formation in crustaceans

Nature Chemical Biology volume 7, pages 197–199 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

It has been thought that phosphorus in biominerals made of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) might be related to ACC formation, but no such phosphorus-containing compounds have ever been identified. Crustaceans use ACC biominerals in exoskeleton and gastroliths so that they will have easy access to calcium carbonate inside the body before and after molting. We have identified phosphoenolpyruvate and 3-phosphoglycerate, intermediates of the glycolytic pathway, in exoskeleton and gastroliths and found them important for stabilizing ACC.

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Figure 1: PEP, 3PG and citrate as major organic compounds in the hard tissues of the crayfish, P. clarkii.
Figure 2: The effect of phosphate, PEP, 3PG and citrate on the induction of ACC formation.
Figure 3: PEP and 3PG are secreted from the gastrolith disk epithelia to the extracellular space at the premolt stage.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to J.J. Hull for critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank Y. Kagayama (Fisheries Station of Yamagata Prefecture, Japan) for supplying us with the mitten crab. This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (nos. 17GS0311, 22248037 and 22228006) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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Author notes

  1. Ai Sato and Seiji Nagasaka: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Ai Sato, Seiji Nagasaka, Kazuo Furihata, Shinji Nagata, Shohei Sakuda & Hiromichi Nagasawa

  2. Graduate School of Life Sciences, Toyo University, Itakura-machi, Gunma, Japan

    Seiji Nagasaka

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Isao Arai, Kazuko Saruwatari & Toshihiro Kogure

  4. Central Research Institute, Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, Naka-shi, Ibaraki, Japan.,

    Isao Arai

  5. Soft Chemistry Group, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki, Japan.,

    Kazuko Saruwatari

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  1. Ai Sato
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Contributions

A.S. performed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. A.S., S. Nagasaka and H.N. designed the experiments. K.F. assisted in the NMR measurements and spectral analyses. S. Nagata assisted in the MS measurements. I.A., K.S. and T.K. conducted XRD measurements and supervised crystallographic analysis. S.S. and H.N. supervised the whole project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hiromichi Nagasawa.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figures 1–13 and Supplementary Tales 1 & 2 (PDF 5670 kb)

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Sato, A., Nagasaka, S., Furihata, K. et al. Glycolytic intermediates induce amorphous calcium carbonate formation in crustaceans. Nat Chem Biol 7, 197–199 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.532

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