Physiologically, OAT1 is located in the basolateral membrane of proximal tubular cells. During renal damage loss of polarity occurs in renal epithelial cells, leading to missorting of proteins or complete loss of polarity. Missorting or loss of polarity generally leads to disturbance of vectorial transport. In the present study, hOAT1 was expressed in human renal epithelial IHKE cells (IHKE-hOAT1) and in non polarized CHO cells (CHO-hOAT1). Because EGF and its receptor is described to play on important role in recovery from renal damage, we compared the regulation of hOAT1 by EGF in the (a) basolateral and (b) apical membrane of epithelial cells, and in (c) non polarized cells, resembling the above mentioned pathophysiological situations. Expression of hOAT1 was verified by determination of the kinetic parameters (using fluorescein as a substrate) and western blot (CHO-hOAT1) or RT-PCR (IHKE-hOAT1). To investigate the EGF effect on hOAT1, CHO-hOAT1 cells were additionally co-transfected with the human EGF receptor HER1. In agreement with previous publications, incubation of IHKE-hOAT1 cells with EGF increased fluorescein uptake via basolateral hOAT1. In opposite, EGF inhibited hOAT1 mediated fluorescein uptake across the apical membrane of IHKE-hOAT1 cells. Additionally EGF inhibited hOAT1 mediated fluorescein uptake into non polarized CHO-hOAT1-HER1 cells, too. In summary, we confirmed that EGF stimulates basolateral uptake of organic anions (a) in proximal tubular cells mediated by hOAT1. However, EGF inhibits hOAT1 located in the apical membrane (b) or in non polarized cells (c). Renal failure is associated with successive loss of epithelial polarity. Therefore, inverted regulation of hOAT1 falsely located in the apical membrane of proximal tubular cells may be part of a mechanism stabilizing organic anion secretion in pathophysiological situations.
Copyright 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel