Molecular Phenotypes of Acute Kidney Injury in Kidney Transplants

Microarray analysis of human kidneys with acute kidney injury (AKI) has been limited because such kidneys are seldom biopsied. However, all kidney transplants experience AKI, and early kidney transplants without rejection are an excellent model for human AKI: they are screened to exclude chronic kidney disease, frequently biopsied, and have extensive follow-up. We used histopathology and microarrays to compare indication biopsies from 28 transplants with AKI to 11 pristine protocol biopsies of stable transplants. Kidneys with AKI showed increased expression of 394 injury-repair response associated transcripts, including many known epithelial injury molecules (e.g. ITGB6, LCN2), tissue remodeling molecules (e.g. VCAN), and inflammation molecules (S100A8, ITGB3). Many other genes also predict the phenotype, depending on statistical filtering rules, including AKI biomarkers as HAVCR1 and IL18. Most mouse orthologs of the top injury-repair transcripts were increased in published mouse AKI models. Pathway analysis of the injury-repair transcripts revealed similarities to cancer, development, and cell movement. The injury-repair transcript score AKI kidneys correlated with reduced function, future recovery, brain death, and need for dialysis, but not future graft loss. In contrast, histologic features of "acute tubular injury" did not correlate with function or with the molecular changes. Thus the injury-repair associated transcripts represent a massive coordinate injury-repair response of kidney parenchyma to AKI, similar to mouse AKI models, and provide an objective measure for assessing the severity of AKI in kidney biopsies and validation for the use of many AKI biomarkers.

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Famulski KS, de Freitas DG, Kreepala C, Chang J, Sellares J, Sis B, Einecke G, Mengel M, Reeve J, Halloran PF