From Rare Disorders of Kidney Tubules to Acute Renal Injury: Progress and Prospective

Jiaying Li; Fangxing Hou; Ning Lv; Ruohuan Zhao; Lei Zhang; Cai Yue; Min Nie; Limeng Chen

doi:10.1159/000536423

From Rare Disorders of Kidney Tubules to Acute Renal Injury: Progress and Prospective

Kidney Dis (Basel). 2024 Feb 2;10(2):153-166. doi: 10.1159/000536423. eCollection 2024 Apr.

Authors

Jiaying Li¹, Fangxing Hou¹, Ning Lv¹, Ruohuan Zhao¹, Lei Zhang¹, Cai Yue¹, Min Nie², Limeng Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nephrology, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
² Department of Endocrinology, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a severe condition marked by rapid renal function deterioration and elevated mortality, with traditional biomarkers lacking sensitivity and specificity. Rare tubulointerstitial diseases encompass a spectrum of disorders, primarily including monogenic diseases, immune-related conditions, and drug-induced tubulointerstitial diseases. The clinical manifestations vary from electrolyte and acid-base imbalances to kidney function insufficiency, which is associated with AKI in up to 20% of cases. Evidence indicated that rare tubulointerstitial diseases might provide new conceptual insights and perspectives for novel biomarkers and potential therapeutic strategies for AKI.

Summary: Autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease (ADTKD) and Fanconi syndrome (FS) are rare tubulointerstitial diseases. In ADTKD, UMOD and REN are closely related to AKI by affecting oxidative stress and tubuloglomerular feedback, which provide potential new biomarkers for AKI. Both rare tubulointerstitial diseases and AKI share etiologies and treatment responses. From the mechanism standpoint, rare tubulointerstitial diseases and AKI involve tubular transporter injury, initially manifesting as tubular dysfunction in tubulointerstitial disorder and progressing to AKI because of the programmed cell death with apoptosis, pyroptosis, or necroptosis of proximal tubule cells. Additionally, mitochondrial dysfunction has been identified as a common mechanism in both tubulointerstitial diseases and AKI induced by drugs, pSS, or monoclonal diseases. In the end, both AKI and FS patients and animal models responded well to the therapy of the primary diseases.

Key messages: In this review, we describe an overview of ADTKD and FS to identify their associations with AKI. Mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to rare tubulointerstitial diseases and AKI, which might provide a potential therapeutic target.

Keywords: Acute kidney injury; Mitochondrial disorder; Rare tubulointerstitial diseases.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work was partially supported by grants from the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFC2703901 to L.X.); the National Natural Scientific Foundation of China (82170709, 81970607 to C.L.); the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS 2021-I2M-1-003 to C.L.); the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (L202035 to C.L.); the National High Level Hospital Clinical Research Funding (2022-PUMCH-B-019, 2022-PUMCH-D-002 to C.L.); and the Capital Exemplary Research Wards Project (BCRW202001 to C.L.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.