Project description:Mycophenolic acid (MPA), an immunosuppressive drug widely used in kidney transplantation, has been suggested to have anti-fibrotic effects. To analyze at a genomic level these effects, we prospectively studied a group of stable kidney transplant recipients (n=35) on cyclosporine (CyA) and azathioprine treatment. Twenty patients were converted from azathioprine to MPA (MPA group) and 15 patients continued on azathioprine (AZA group). RNA was extracted by peripheral blood mononuclear cells at baseline and 3 months thereafter. Genomic analysis, performed on 5 randomly-selected MPA patients, revealed that 17 genes discriminated the transcriptomic profile after conversion. Neutral endopeptidase (NEP), an enzyme degrading angiotensin-II, was the most significant up-regulated gene. NEP expression level was inversely correlated to proteinuria at baseline and after conversion. Immunohistochemistry on graft biopsy of 33 independent patients demonstrated higher glomerular and tubular NEP protein expression in CyA+MPA (n=13) compared to CyA+AZA (n=12) and CyA alone (n=8). Glomerular NEP levels were inversely correlated to proteinuria and glomerulosclerosis. Tubular NEP expression was inversely correlated to interstitial fibrosis. Incubation of proximal tubular cells with MPA led to a dose- and time-dependent increase of NEP gene expression. The direct influence of MPA on NEP expression may suggest a novel therapeutic effect of this drug. For microarray analysis, we studied 5 randomly selected patients included in the training group. Patients included in this group were, at the time of enrollment (T0), on standard maintenance immunosuppression with Cyclosporine (Neoral, Novartis, Basel, mean±SD of daily dose: 160.1±37.1mg), prednisone (5 mg daily) and Azathioprine (50 mg daily). Twenty patients, at T0, were switched from Azathioprine to EC-MPS (Myfortic, Novartis, Basel, 720 mg bid) for their need of allopurinol therapy (EC-MPS group). However, to avoid confounding factors, allopurinol treatment did not start until the end of our study (3 months). For the microarray analysis, we randomly selected 5 patients from the EC-MPS group. PBMC both at T0 and at T1 (3 months after the switching of the therapy) were immediately isolated from 20 ml of whole blood by Ficoll–Hypaque (Flow Laboratories, Irvine, UK) density gradient centrifugation. Total RNA was extracted by RNeasy mini kit (QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, CA) according the manufacturer’s instructions. Total RNA was processed and hybridized to the Affymetrix GeneChips Human Genome U133 Array Set HG-U133A (Affymetrix)(Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA)

Project description:Gene expression profiling of kidneys from the murine model of HIV-associated nephropathy (HIVAN) identified an association between the expression of an endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated protein reticulon-1, RTN1, and the severity of kidney disease. Of the three known RTN1 isoforms, only RTN1A protein expression was increased in kidneys of murine models of HIVAN, diabetic nephropathy (DN), and renal fibrosis and humans with HIVAN and DN. Both mRNA and protein expression of RTN1-A in the kidneys correlated inversely with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in patients with DN. In kidney cells, RTN1 overexpression induced ER stress/apoptosis, whereas RTN1 knockdown attenuated tunicamycin-, and hyperglycemia-induced ER stress/apoptosis. Incubation of kidney cells with high glucose media induced RTN1A expression likely through oxidative pathway, while knockdown of RTN1A inhibited high glucose-induced apoptosis. RTN1A interacts with PERK and mutation of its N- or C-terminal domain abolished its effects on ER stress/apoptosis. In vivo, knockdown of Rtn1a expression either before or after kidney injury attenuated renal fibrosis in mice with unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) and tubular epithelial cell-specific knockdown of Rtn1a also ameliorated ER stress and renal fibrosis in the UUO mice. Finally, knockdown of Rtn1a also attenuated proteinuria, glomerular hypertrophy, and mesangial expansion in STZ-induced diabetic mice, which were associated with suppression of ER stress markers. Taken together, these data suggest that RTN1 is a mediator of kidney disease progression that exacerbates kidney injury through ER stress and apoptosis. Animal studies: All animal studies were approved by the IACUC committee of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. HIV-1 transgenic mice, Tg26, and their littermates were generated and genotyped as described. Only male heterozygous Tg26 in the FVB/N background were used in the study, because homozygous HIV-transgenic mice are not viable for more than few weeks postnatally. UUO and folic acid-induced nephropathy models were created as described . Mice were grouped as wild type, Tg26 with mild kidney injury, Tg26, with serious kidney injury. The kidneys were collected from these mice for histology, western blot, real-time PCR analysis, and microarray studies. Kidney disease was confirmed by measurement of proteinuria, renal function, and histologic analysis. Microarray studies: Affymetrix gene expression microarrays were performed at the Mount Sinai Institution Microarray Core Facility. The Affymetrix GeneChip® Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array was used to profile gene expression in the kidney cortex of Tg26 and WT mice 37. One-way analysis of variance test (ANOVA) was applied to the dataset to identify the genes that were differentially expressed between the two groups. P-values were corrected using Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) with a threshold of 0.05.

Project description:Proteinuria is the most important predictor of outcome in glomerulonephritis and experimental data suggest that the tubular cell response to proteinuria is an important determinant of progressive fibrosis in the kidney. However, it is unclear whether proteinuria is a marker of disease severity or has a direct effect on tubular cells in the kidneys of patients with glomerulonephritis. Accordingly we studied an in vitro model of proteinuria, and identified 231 albumin-regulated genes differentially expressed by primary human kidney tubular epithelial cells exposed to albumin. We translated these findings to human disease by studying mRNA levels of these genes in the tubulo-interstitial compartment of kidney biopsies from patients with IgA nephropathy using microarrays. Biopsies from patients with IgAN (n=25) could be distinguished from those of control subjects (n=6) based solely upon the expression of these 231 albumin-regulated genes. The expression of an 11-transcript subset related to the degree of proteinuria, and this 11-mRNA subset was also sufficient to distinguish biopsies of subjects with IgAN from control biopsies. We tested if these findings could be extrapolated to other proteinuric diseases beyond IgAN and found that the all forms of primary glomerulonephritis (n=33) can be distinguished from controls (n=21) based solely on the expression levels of these 11 genes derived from our in vitro proteinuria model. Pathway analysis suggests common regulatory elements shared by these 11 transcripts. In conclusion, we have identified an albumin-regulated 11-gene signature shared between all forms of primary glomerulonephritis. Our findings support the hypothesis that albuminuria may directly promote injury in the tubulo-interstitial compartment of the kidney in patients with glomerulonephritis. We used microarrays to analyze the transcriptome of microdissected renal biopsies from patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) RNA from tubulointerstitial compartments was extracted and processed for hybridization on Affymetrix HG-U133A microarrays.

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Effect of Mycophenolic Acid on renal transplant recipients

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