Pathological alterations in glomerular mesangial cells play a critical role in the development of diabetic nephropathy, the leading cause of end-stage renal disease. Molecular mechanisms mediating such alterations, however, remain to be fully understood. The present study first examined the effect of high glucose on the mRNA expression profile in rat mesangial cells using cDNA microarray. Based...

BACKGROUND Mesangial activation occurs in many forms of renal disease that progress to renal failure. Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are important mediators involved in the intracellular network of interacting proteins that transduce extracellular stimuli to intracellular responses. The extracellular signal-regulated kinases 5 (Erk5) MAPK pathway has been involved in regulating sever...

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is th e commonest primary glomerular disease worldwide. Studies on its prevalence in Brazil are however scarce. Databases and clinical records from 10 reference centres were retrospectively reviewed. Clinical and laboratory features at the moment of the biopsy were retrieved (age, gender, presence of hematuria, serum creatinine [mg/dL], proteinuria [g/24 h]). Renal biopsy...

Background. There has been a lack of international consensus on the classification and the predictive value of the histopathology findings in IgA nephropathy (IgAN). Recently, the International IgA Nephropathy Network has developed the Oxford classification in which four histological variables with the most prognostic importance are identified (MEST score). Our objective was to validate these f...

THE AIM OF THE STUDY The aim of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of urinary collagen IV (Col IV) excretion for predicting the severity of autoimmune renal inflammation in children with HSN (Henoch-Schönlein nephritis). MATERIAL AND METHODS We studied 26 children, in whom HSN was diagnosed based on kidney biopsy. In all patients, urinalysis was performed and 24-hour urinary protein exc...

AIMS The aims of this study were to validate the diagnosis of IgA nephropathy (IgAN) in Swedish biopsy registers against patient charts and to describe the clinical characteristics of patients with a biopsy indicating IgAN. METHODS This is a population-based cohort study. Out of 4,069 individuals with a renal biopsy consistent with IgAN (biopsies performed in 1974-2011), this study reviewed p...

Dr. A. Sessa, Unità Operativa di Nefrologia e Dialisi, Ospedale di Vimercate, I-20059 Vimercate (Italy) Dear Sir, The accompanying micrograph shows a typical glom-erulonephritis with mesangial electrondense deposits. The kidney biopsy was performed in a 17-year-old girl presenting the clinical picture of Berger’s disease but without IgA mesangial deposits on immunofluorescent microscopy; light ...

CD44 is the major cell-surface receptor for hyaluronan, and cell-matrix interactions mediated by the CD44/hyaluronan receptor-ligand pair are involved in a variety of cellular functions, including cell migration. The aim of the study presented here was to examine the expression of CD44 and hyaluronan in the mesangial proliferative response in rat anti-Thy-1 nephritis. In normal rat kidney, CD44...

Histamine influences the glomerular microcirculation and modulates immune-inflammatory responses. In the rat kidney, histamine is synthesized by glomeruli and stimulates cyclic nucleotide production specifically in glomeruli. We investigated the in vitro effect of histamine on cyclic nucleotide accumulation in rat cultured glomerular mesangial and epithelial cells. Histamine stimulated cyclic A...