Deciphering renal fibrosis using kidney slices
2023
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Renal fibrosis is one of the main pathophysiological processes underlying the progression of chronic kidney disease and kidney allograft failure. The objective of this study was to establish a drug screening platform for renal fibrosis based on human precision-cut kidney slices (PCKS).
PCKS were prepared from functional and macroscopically healthy renal tissue obtained from 16 patients following tumor nephrectomies. The slices were treated for 48 h with human transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β) in the absence or presence of various drugs. Using Western blotting and gene expression arrays, it was shown that TGF-β induced fibrosis in human PCKS. In addition, the tested putative anti-fibrotic compounds altered TGF-β-induced pro-fibrotic gene expression in human PCKS, and it was found that the individual compounds modulate fairly distinct sets of genes.
In conclusion, this study revealed that PCKS are a feasible system to test drug efficacy and elucidate mechanisms of action.
An animal-free preclinical drug screening platform based on human precision-cut kidney slices
Henricus A. M. Mutsaers
Added on: 05-08-2023
[1] https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-023-06303-4