Stabilization of Calcium Oxalate Precursors during the Pre- and Post-Nucleation Stages with Poly(acrylic acid) Díaz Soler, Felipe Rodríguez Navarro, Carlos Manuel Ruiz Agudo, Encarnación Neira Carrillo, Andrónico Calcium oxalate Pre-nucleation clusters Poly(acrylic acid) Amorphous calcium oxalate (ACO) In this work, calcium oxalate (CaOx) precursors were stabilized by poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) as an additive under in vitro crystallization assays involving the formation of pre-nucleation clusters of CaOx via a non-classical crystallization (NCC) pathway. The in vitro crystallization of CaOx was carried out in the presence of 10, 50 and 100 mg/L PAA by using automatic calcium potentiometric titration experiments at a constant pH of 6.7 at 20 C. The results confirmed the successful stabilization of amorphous calcium oxalate II and III (ACOII and ACO III) nanoparticles formed after PNC in the presence of PAA and suggest the participation and stabilization of polymer-induced liquidprecursor (PILP) in the presence of PAA. We demonstrated that PAA stabilizes CaOx precursors with size in the range of 20–400 nm. PAA additive plays a key role in the in vitro crystallization of CaOx stabilizing multi-ion complexes in the pre-nucleation stage, thereby delaying the nucleation of ACO nanoparticles. Indeed, PAA additive favors the formation of more hydrated and soluble phase of ACO nanoparticles that are bound by electrostatic interactions to carboxylic acid groups of PAA during the post-nucleation stage. These findings may help to a better understanding of the pathological mineralization resulting in urolithiasis in mammals. 2021-03-08T10:25:21Z 2021-03-08T10:25:21Z 2021-01-18 journal article Díaz-Soler, F.; Rodriguez-Navarro, C.; Ruiz-Agudo, E.; Neira-Carrillo, A. Stabilization of Calcium Oxalate Precursors during the Pre- and Post-Nucleation Stages with Poly(acrylic acid). Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 235. [https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11010235] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/66976 10.3390/nano11010235 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Mdpi