Strontium as a tracer to study the transport of calcium in the epiphyseal growth plate (electronprobe microanalysis)

At the mineralization front of the epiphyseal growth plate large quantities of calcium (Ca) are necessary to form the mineral (a Ca-phosphate). It is an unsolved problem, whether Ca is transported through the cells of the growth plate cartilage or extracellularly. Electronprobe microanalysis (EPMA) allows the quantitative, morphologically correlated analysis of elements. EPMA can discriminate only different elements. To investigate the transport of Ca, Strontium (Sr) is a very good tracer, as it resembles Ca in many biological reactions.