Study reveals that common kidney disease is caused by swelling from sugar

A study conducted in a novel lab setting reveals that the organoids present in kidneys could have implications for the treatment of polycystic kidney disease PKD an incurable disease that affects more than 12 million people worldwideOne important finding from the study sugar appears to play a role in the formation of fluidfilled cysts which are a hallmark of PKD In humans these cysts grow large enough to impair kidney function and eventually cause the organs to fail necessitating dialysis or transplantationThe study which was published in the journal Nature Communications stated Sugar uptake is something that kidneys do all the timeWe found that increasing the levels of sugar in the dish cultures caused cysts to swell And when we employed drugs known to block sugar absorption in the kidneys it blocked this swelling But I think it relates less to blood sugar level and more to how kidney cells take in sugar which in this process seemed to go rogue and give rise to cysts said Freedman a cosenior author of the studyFor years Freedman has studied PKD in organoids grown from pluripotent stem cells Organoids resemble miniature kidneys They contain filtering cells connected to tubes and can respond to infection and therapeutics in ways that parallel the responses of kidneys in people Although his team can grow organoids that give rise to PKD cysts the mechanisms of those cysts formation are not yet understood In this investigation the researchers focused on how the flow of fluid within the kidney contributes to PKDTo do so they invented a new tool that merged a kidney organoid with a microfluidic chip This allowed a combination of water sugar amino acids and other nutrients to flow over organoids that had been geneedited to mimic PKDWe were expecting the PKD cysts in the organoids to get worse under flow because the disease is associated with the physiological flow rates that we were exploring Freedman explained The surprising part was that the process of cystswelling involved absorption the intake of fluid inward through cells from outside the cyst Thats the opposite of what is commonly thought which is that cysts form by pushing fluid outward through cells Its a whole new way of thinking about cyst formationIn the chips the researchers observed that the cells lining the walls of the PKD cysts faced outward as they stretched and swelled such that the tops of the cells were on the outside of the cysts This inverted arrangement these cells would be facing inward in living kidneys suggests that cysts grow by pulling in sugarrich fluid not by secreting the liquidThe observation gave researchers more information about how cysts form in organoids a finding that will have to be tested further in vivo As well the fact that sugar levels drive cyst development points to new potential therapeutic optionsThe results of the experiment are significant because there is a whole class of molecules that block sugar uptake in the kidneys and are attractive therapeutics for a number of conditions Freedman said They havent been tested yet but we view this as a proofofconcept that these drugs could potentially help PKD patientsRead MoreBF7 and XBB All you need to know about the subvariants and their severityThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever