New Hope For Treating Kidney Failure

A latest study identifies certain cells that contribute to a decline in kidney function. Targeting these kidney cells may help in treating kidney failures.

The study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology claim that podocytes-the blood filtering cells present in the kidney are important for the proper functioning of the organ. Loss of 20 to 30 percent of these cells can lead to kidney failure.

In this study, researchers Marcus Moeller, MD, Bart Smeets, PhD, Katja Berger (RWTH University of Aachen, in Germany), along with their colleague are working towards generating podocytes from putative kidney progenitor cells called the parietal cells. If this works, they suggest that this could be an effective treatment strategy that can be adopted to treat kidney failure.

Researchers conducted experiments on mice. They noticed that the podocytes cannot be restored from the parietal cells. Rather they noticed that the loss of podocytes forces the parietal cells to play a destructive role by causing kidney scarring. further contributing to a decline in kidney function.

"This opens a very important new strategy to prevent loss of kidney function: by inhibiting the parietal cells from doing their destructive work," said Dr. Moeller.

Reports according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that kidney disease is the ninth leading cause of death in the U.S. was responsible for the death of over 45,000 people in 2011. Over 10 percent or more than 20 million U.S. adults have chronic kidney disease and are unaware of the condition. Nearly 35 percent of people suffering from diabetes also have chronic kidney disease.

The study however did find an additional and inadequate reserve of podocytes that are there at birth and mature by adulthood.

"Our results indicate that research efforts should be directed towards preserving our limited pool of filter cells and to develop pharmacological strategies to inhibit scarring of the kidney by parietal cells," said Dr. Moeller.

The finding as documented in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).