Despite common wisdom, the role of essential hypertension in the etiopathogenesis of ESRD has been controversial. Two recently published studies demonstrated a strong association of genetic variants in the gene that encodes the molecular motor protein nonmuscle myosin 2a (MYH9) with ESRD in African American patients without diabetes. These new data demonstrate that much of the excess risk of ES...

A recent study by Genovese et al. unraveled the findings of the intensively discussed gene region around MYH9 and its association with non-diabetic chronic kidney disease in African-Americans. First, it is not the genetic variation in MYH9 but in the neighbouring APOL1 that causes the strong association with disease in African-Americans and second, the study showed strong evidence for a positiv...

African Americans have a disproportionate risk for developing nephropathy. This disparity has been attributed to coding variants (G1 and G2) in apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1); however, there is little functional evidence supporting the role of this protein in renal function. Here, we combined genetics and in vivo modeling to examine the role of apol1 in glomerular development and pronephric filtrati...

Lipoxins (LXs) are endogenously produced anti-inflammatory agents that modulate leukocyte trafficking and stimulate nonphlogistic macrophage phagocytosis of apoptotic neutrophils, thereby promoting the resolution of inflammation. Previous data suggest a role for altered protein phosphorylation and cytoskeletal rearrangement in LX-stimulated phagocytosis but the exact mechanisms remain unclear. ...

CONTEXT Neutrophils are the primary effector cells in the pathogenesis of transfusion-related acute lung injury or multiple organ failure after blood transfusion. OBJECTIVE We aimed to investigate the effect of fresh (1 day preparation) and aged (42 day preparation) PRBC-derived plasma on neutrophil morphology, migration and phagocytosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS We evaluated the production of...

OBJECTIVE Though single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the non-muscle myosin gene (MYH9) have been reported to explain most of the excess risk of nondiabetic chronic kidney disease (CKD), in African-Americans, some studies have also shown associations with diabetic end-stage renal disease. We investigated the association of MYH9 SNPs with renal traits in a mixed-ancestry South African popul...

MYH9 encodes non-muscle myosin heavy chain IIA (NMMHCIIA), the predominant force-generating ATPase in non-muscle cells. Several lines of evidence implicate a role for MYH9 in podocytopathies. However, NMMHCIIA's function in podocytes remains unknown. To better understand this function, we performed immuno-precipitation followed by mass-spectrometry proteomics to identify proteins interacting wi...

Recent studies identified MYH9 as a major susceptibility gene for common forms of non-diabetic end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). A set of African ancestry DNA sequence variants comprising the E-1 haplotype, was significantly associated with ESKD. In order to determine whether African ancestry variants are also associated with disease susceptibility in admixed populations with differing genomic b...