Team identify new targets for diabetic kidney disease treatment
In a paper, published in Nature Communications, Dr Abigail Lay, Professor Richard Coward and an international team led by the University of Bristol, with support from Kidney Research UK, have identified key molecules and pathways involved in the development of diabetic kidney disease, which could lead to future treatments.
Diabetic kidney disease
Diabetic kidney disease is a leading cause of kidney failure in the UK. Despite this, our understanding of the mechanisms leading to kidney damage in patients with diabetes is incomplete and new approaches to protecting the kidneys of individuals living with diabetes are needed. Greater knowledge of the pathways and changes that lead to reduced kidney function is crucial for developing new treatments and diagnostics.
An innovative approach to understanding the link between kidney damage and diabetes
Richard applied to Kidney Research UK for a grant to investigate how kidney cells react to the changes in the body that happen when a person has diabetes. By comparing different types of kidney cells from patients with and without a key feature of diabetes, known as insulin resistance, Richard and colleagues were able to identify several unknown changes in genes, cell communication pathways and protein production that are linked with diabetic kidney disease.
Professor Richard Coward said: “We know that insulin resistance is important for the development of kidney problems in diabetic patients, and this study has allowed us to identify some of the changes to cells that happen during this disorder.
"Importantly, we have pinpointed several alterations that occur in the same way in many key cell types within the kidney; this provides us with important new treatment targets that could protect different elements of kidney function.
"By better understanding the changes that occur, this work may also support new ways of detecting kidney damage earlier, and monitoring kidney health, in individuals living with diabetes.”
Translating the research findings into patient benefit
Identifying the precise changes that happen in the kidneys of patients living with diabetes is key to understanding the underlying mechanisms of the disease and providing new treatment targets. Richard said: “This is a great first step towards new treatments for diabetic kidney disease, but more work is needed. By making our findings fully searchable for other research teams we hope to see new approaches to treatment being developed in the near future.”
Supporting the kidney research community?
This work builds on Dr Abigail Lay’s fellowship, which is supported by Kidney Research UK, and is investigating whether chemical changes in DNA can cause diabetic kidney disease and represents the important role of charity funding for building up research expertise.
Professor Richard Coward commented: “Kidney Research UK supported us from our very early work where we looked at insulin signaling in the kidney, which we know now to be a very important factor in DKD, to this latest breakthrough. This new work takes us one step closer to our ultimate aim of delivering direct patient benefit; we hope that the new targets that we have discovered will directly lead to disease prevention strategies in the future”.
Dr Abigail Lay added: “As Richard says, Kidney Research UK has been instrumental in this research, from supporting the initial studies of how insulin affects kidney cells, to supporting my fellowship research investigating what chemical changes to our kidney DNA might be causing DKD.
The charity’s support has, crucially, also allowed us to build expertise in analysing and generating large datasets. We’ve also made sure our results are accessible and open to other research teams performing their own analyses, which we hope will mean the most promising drug targets are prioritised for developing new, better treatments for DKD in the future.”
Dr Aisling McMahon, executive director of research at Kidney Research UK commented: “We are determined to find ways to tackle diabetic kidney disease. By providing detailed information on genes and pathways involved in diabetic kidney disease, Professor Coward's work takes us one step closer to a more complete understanding of this condition, but also towards discovering new targeted agents to prevent it.”
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