Cisplatin is a chemotherapy drug widely used in the treatment of solid tumors. However, nephrotoxicity has been reported in about one-third of patients undergoing cisplatin therapy. Proximal tubules are the main target of cisplatin toxicity and cellular uptake; elimination of this drug can modulate renal damage. Organic transporters play an important role in the transport of cisplatin into the kidney and organic cations transporter 2 (OCT-2) has been shown to be one of the most important transporters to play this role. On the other hand, multidrug and toxin extrusion 1 (MATE-1) transporter is the main protein that mediates the extrusion of cisplatin into the urine. Cisplatin nephrotoxicity has been shown to be enhanced by increased OCT-2 and/or reduced MATE-1 activity. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPAR-α) is the transcription factor which controls lipid metabolism and glucose homeostasis; it is highly expressed in the kidneys and interacts with both MATE-1 and OCT-2. Considering the above, we treated wild-type and PPAR-α knockout mice with cisplatin in order to evaluate the severity of nephrotoxicity. Cisplatin induced renal dysfunction, renal inflammation, apoptosis and tubular injury in wild-type mice, whereas PPAR-α deletion protected against these alterations. Moreover, we observed that cisplatin induced down-regulation of organic transporters MATE-1 and OCT-2 and that PPAR-α deletion restored the expression of these transporters. In addition, PPAR-α knockout mice at basal state showed increased MATE-1 expression and reduced OCT-2 levels. Here, we show for the first time that PPAR-α deletion protects against cisplatin nephrotoxicity and that this protection is via modulation of the organic transporters MATE-1 and OCT-2.
Keywords: PPAR-alpha; cisplatin nephrotoxicity; organic transporters.