Fig. 4.

Arbutin and its antilithogenic effects on oxalate-based calculi. (A) Polarized microscopy of MTs treated with arbutin compared with standard medium and oxalate-supplemented fly medium. (B) Percentage of fecal excreta area that contains birefringence signal/calculi when flies are grown in various fly medium treatments, including arbutin. *P<0.01 with two-way ANOVA, Scheffe α correction. (C) Dose-dependent inhibition of oxalate-based fecal excreta deposited by Drosophila with various concentrations of arbutin. (D) Microscopy of coverslips deposited with calculi-rich fecal excreta and dissected MTs when fly medium is supplemented with 0, 32 and 512 µM arbutin. (E) Schematic of patient urine-based kidney stone in vivo formation assay. Patient urine samples are added to fly media with and no other supplementation. Coverslips containing calculi-rich fecal excreta are analyzed via microscopy. Vehicle image for coverslip analysis is DMSO sample reproduced from Fig. 3B; drug image is from the image labeled 2 in Fig. 3B. (F) The patient urine-based kidney stone in vivo formation assay was used to compare potassium citrate with arbutin at various pHs. Coverslips containing calculi-containing fecal excreta were analyzed by birefringence microscopy. *P<0.05, two-way ANOVA, Scheffe α correction.