A.K. was a 5-year-old boy who presented to the pediatric nephrology clinic with a recent finding of microscopic hematuria and proteinuria on routine screening. The analysis was repeated two weeks later with persistence of hematuria and proteinuria. A complete blood count (CBC) and a metabolic panel (Chem7) were both normal. Renal ultrasound was performed which was also normal and without hydron...

BACKGROUND Alport syndrome (AS) is a hereditary nephropathy characterized by progressive renal failure, hearing loss and ocular lesions. Numerous mutations of the COL4A5 gene encoding the alpha 5-chain of type IV collagen have been described, establishing the molecular cause of AS. The goal of the present study was to identify the genotype-phenotype correlations that are helpful in clinical cou...

BACKGROUND Alport syndrome is a genetic disease that progresses to chronic kidney failure, with X-linked, autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive type of inheritance. Women are generally carriers of the mutation and have a milder form of the disease. During pregnancy, they have an increased risk of impaired kidney function and preeclampsia. CASE PRESENTATION A 27-year old woman, gravida 1, ...

Alport syndrome refers to a hereditary disorder characterized by progressive renal disease and a multilaminar appearance to the glomerular basement membrane (GBM). In a small group of patients with Alport syndrome, cyclosporine A was reported to decrease proteinuria and maintain stable renal function over 7 to 10 yr of follow-up. The present study examined the effect of cyclosporine A on GBM st...

BACKGROUND Female carriers of X-linked Alport syndrome (XLAS) demonstrate variability in clinical phenotype that, unlike males, cannot be correlated with genotype. X-inactivation, the method by which females (XX) silence transcription from one X chromosome in order to achieve gene dosage parity with males (XY), likely modifies the carrier phenotype, but this hypothesis has not been tested direc...

Posttransplant antiglomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM) disease occurs in approximately 5% of Alport patients and usually ends in irreversible graft failure. Recent research has focused on characterizing the structure of the anti-GBM alloepitope. Here we present a case of a 22-year-old male with end-stage renal disease secondary to Alport syndrome, with a previously failed renal allograft, w...

Alport Syndrome results in a genetic mutation in type IV collagen; one place of major significance is the glomerular basement membrane of nephrons. These patients are at high risk for glomerulonephritis and renal failure in addition to inner ear and eye pathology. This patient is a 25 year old Caucasian female with non-deaf Alport Syndrome who was hospitalized for intractable headaches with pai...

X-linked Alport syndrome (AS) is a heritable disorder which is associated with mutations in the type IV collagen oc5(IV) chain gene (COL4A5) located on chromosome X. Following renal transplantation, an average of 6% of male AS patients develop anti-GBM nephritis. We studied the specificity of the antibodies against type IV collagen in the serum of a patient with COL4A5 partial deletion. The spe...

No specific or efficient treatment exists for Alport syndrome, an X-linked hereditary disease caused by mutations in collagen type IV, a crucial component of the glomerular basement membrane. Kidney failure is usually a major complication of the disease, and patients require renal replacement therapy early in life. Microhematuria and subsequently proteinuria are hallmarks of kidney involvement,...