Possible Significance of Hexosephosphoric Esters in Ossification

Abstract

THE explanation of the process of calcification suggested in the first of these papers requires that a suitable phosphoric ester shall be supplied to those regions of bone and cartilage where ossification is taking place.It has been shown that one of the acid-soluble phosphoric esters occurring in blood fulfils the conditions of suitability in that it yields a soluble calcium salt and is hydrolysed by aqueous extracts of the bone enzyme,'but the fact that these esters are almost entirely confined to the corpuscles' makes it necessary to enquire further into the possibility of this compound passing into the fluids bathing the cartilage cells.This possibility would not -be excluded even if the ester were normally absent from blood-plasma, for a varying permeability of cell membranes must be assumed to explain many of the facts of physiology.The amounts of organic acid-soluble P found by previous workers in normal plasma or serum are set out in Table I.Table I.