Mineralized mice

Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah; but most people are saved from being turned into one big pile of minerals by mineralization inhibitors. Murshed et al. (page 625) now show that these inhibitors act locally and selectively despite circulating systemically. A better understanding of how this works could suggest ways to tackle the ectopic mineralization seen during arthritis.

Mineralization is necessary in bone, but must be prevented in soft tissues—such as artery walls and cartilage—that have an extensive, mineralization-prone extracellular matrix (ECM). It is unclear how this distinction is made by inhibitors that are made locally but also circulate systemically.

Murshed et al. investigated this process by expressing a known mineralization inhibitor, Matrix gla protein (MGP), in...