Cardiovascular complications such as hypertension are a continuous concern in patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). The PKD2 encoding for polycystin-2 is mutated in approximately 15% of ADPKD patients. Here, we show that polycystin-2 is localized to the cilia of mouse and human vascular endothelial cells. We demonstrate that the normal expression level and localiza...

Mutations in cystic kidney disease genes represent a major genetic cause of end-stage renal disease. However, the molecular cascades controlling the expression of these genes are still poorly understood. Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1beta (HNF1beta) is a homeoprotein predominantly expressed in renal, pancreatic and hepatic epithelia. We report here that mice with renal-specific inactivation of HNF...

BACKGROUND Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) caused by deleterious mutations in PKD1 (16p13.3) and PKD2 (4q21) often coexists with intracranial aneurysms (IAs). In this study, we investigated whether IAs without obvious renal diseases were also associated with these ADPKD genes. METHODS We performed next-generation sequencing of the ADPKD genes in 150 Japanese familial IA p...

BACKGROUND The molecular mechanisms that guide heart valve formation are not well understood. However, elucidation of the genetic basis of congenital heart disease is one of the prerequisites for the development of tissue-engineered heart valves. METHODS AND RESULTS We isolated here a mutation in zebrafish, bungee (bng(jh177)), which selectively perturbs valve formation in the embryonic heart...

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common genetic disease that causes kidney failure and accounts for 10% of all patients who are on renal replacement therapy. However, the marked phenotypic variation between patients who carry the same PKD1 or PKD2 mutation suggests that nonallelic factors may have a greater influence on the cystic phenotype. Endothelin-1 (ET-1) t...

The PKD1 and PKD2 genes are the genes that are mutated in patients suffering from autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. The human PKD2 gene codes for a 968-amino acid long membrane protein called polycystin-2 that represents a cation channel whose activity can be regulated by Ca(2+) ions. By CD, fluorescence, and NMR spectroscopy, we have studied a 117-amino acid-long fragment of the cy...

Neuronal polarization requires coordinated regulation of membrane trafficking and cytoskeletal dynamics. Several signaling proteins are involved in neuronal polarization via modulation of cytoskeletal dynamics in neurites. However, very little is known about signaling proteins in the neuronal soma, which regulate polarized membrane trafficking and neuronal polarization. Protein kinase D (PKD) c...

Histamine, an inflammatory mediator, has been shown to influence the pathogenesis of vascular wall cells. However, the molecular basis of its influence is not well understood. Our data reveal that histamine markedly induces protein kinase D (PKD) activation in human aortic smooth muscle cells. PKD belongs to a family of serine/threonine protein kinases, and its function in vascular disease is l...

Mutations in either PKD1 or PKD2 gene are associated with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, the most common inherited kidney disorder. Polycystin-2 (PC2), the PKD2 gene product, and the related protein polycystin-L, function as Ca(2+)-permeable, nonselective cation channels in different expression systems. This work describes a nonspecific cation current (I(CC)) that is present in n...

The phenotypes that are associated with the common forms of polycystic kidney disease (PKD)--autosomal dominant (ADPKD) and autosomal recessive (ARPKD)--are highly variable in penetrance. This is in terms of severity of renal disease, which can range from neonatal death to adequate function into old age, characteristics of the liver disease, and other extrarenal manifestations in ADPKD. Influen...