Figure 8.

Microscopy evidence for entombed bacteria in brushite human kidney stones. (A) Color brightfield (BF) image of a 25 µm thin section prepared from a brushite stone. (B) Same field of view as in a indicating that concentrically layered spherules exhibit extinction under polarized light (POL) and are therefore amorphous (noncrystalline; white arrows). Conversely, the radiating acicular crystals of brushite (white box in B, see also Figure 5, E and F) are strongly birefringent. Inset in lower right in (B) is a transmitted light photomultiplier (TPMT) image of spherules with entombed coccoidal and rod-shaped bacteria throughout each crystal (white arrows). White arrows in (B) indicate cross-sections at various oblique angles of entombed coccoidal and rod-shaped bacteria.