New Light on Kidney Disease — Dr. Michael Brownlee and colleagues have found that a single enzyme determines susceptibility to the kidney disease associated with diabetes. The high blood sugar levels that characterize diabetes are known to impair kidney function in some but not all diabetes patients, often necessitating dialysis. But the reason why diabetic nephropathy only affects some patients is not well understood. In research on non-diabetic mice, the Brownlee team suppressed levels of Glo1, an enzyme that detoxifies a compound derived from sugar. The result: kidney damage identical to that caused by diabetic nephrophathy. The researchers also found that overexpressing Glo1 in diabetic mice prevented nephropathy from occurring. The findings, published online in the September issue of Diabetes, suggest that manipulating Glo1 activity could help in treating or even preventing nephropathy in people with diabetes. Dr. Brownlee is professor of medicine and of pathology at Einstein. He holds the Anita and Jack Saltz Chair in Diabetes Research and is associate director for biomedical sciences in Einstein’s Diabetes Research Center.
Posted on: Thursday, January 09, 2014