| dc.description.abstract | Gout is the most widespread crystal-induced inflammatory arthritis by monosodium urate monohydrate (MSUM). It was estimated at least 2.5% people suffering from it all over the world. Hyperuricemia is essential for the MSUM formation, but only some of patients are able to develop gout. Therefore, there are 4 aims in the research to reveal the mystery of MSUM formation in vivo: First, to produce beachballs and other MSUM morphologies with various Na+ ions level which will unravel the pathogenesis of gout. Second, to observe the conversion from uric acid to MSUM in the simulated body fluid system. Third, to explore the synergistic effect of hyaluronate, Na+ ion and Ca2+ ion in MSUM crystallization. Forth, to find the influence of the common 20 kinds of amino acid in human body on MSUM crystallization. According to the experimental results and reference, we proposed 8 significant findings in this study: various morphologies of MSUM: (1) beachball, spherulite and bow-like aggregate could be prepared at different Na+ ion levels at 37C, (2) morphological transformation from beachball to spherulite to bow-like aggregate can be achieved, (3) beachball is a disordered, first-formed precursor for all MSUM morphologies, (4) a new type of MSUM fishtail morphology was observed in the hyaluronate, Na+ and Ca2+ ion containing solutions, (5) the dilemma of MSUM deposition at thermodynamically unfavorable low pH condition was solved by the newly discovered kinetic pathway for the phase conversion of uric acid dihydrate (UAD) to MSUM, (6) the UAD-to-MSUM pathway can also be used to explain the effects brought about by the inflammatory response and acidosis, and why MSUM deposition in cartilage and connective tissue, (7) the question of why only a fraction of hyperuricemic patients has gout was answered by the solubilization of urate through the complex formation with hyaluronate chains and Ca2+ ions, and (8) some amino acids can influence the size of MSUM crystal. | en_US |