Immunology of membranous nephropathy

Shin'ichi Akiyama; Enyu Imai; Shoichi Maruyama

doi:10.12688/f1000research.17589.1

Immunology of membranous nephropathy

F1000Res. 2019 May 24:8:F1000 Faculty Rev-734. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.17589.1. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Shin'ichi Akiyama¹, Enyu Imai², Shoichi Maruyama¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan.
² Nakayamadera Imai Clinic, Takarazuka, Hyōgo, Japan.

Abstract

Accounting for about 20 to 50% of cases of primary nephrotic syndrome, membranous nephropathy (MN) is the leading cause of nephrotic syndrome in adults. A rat model created nearly 60 years ago to research the primary MN disorder, Heymann nephritis, has provided us with a plethora of important information. Recently, our knowledge about MN has dramatically progressed. Heymann nephritis and human MN are now known to share a high degree of similarity in pathogenesis. This review summarizes our current understanding of MN pathogenesis while focusing particularly on the immunological aspects.

Keywords: Epitope spreading; Heymann nephritis; Membranous nephropathy; NEP; PLA2R; THSD7A; podocyte.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Disease Models, Animal
Glomerulonephritis, Membranous / immunology*
Glomerulonephritis, Membranous / pathology*
Humans
Rats

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development [JP18ek0109354] and a Grant-in-Aid for Intractable Renal Diseases Research, Research on rare and intractable diseases, Health and Labour Sciences Research Grants [H29-nanchi(nan)-ippan-017] from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan.