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Glomerular expression and urinary excretion of fatty acid-binding protein 4 in IgA nephropathy

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Abstract

Background

Fatty acid-binding protein 4 (FABP4) is secreted from adipocytes and macrophages in adipose tissue and acts as an adipokine. It has recently been reported that FABP4, but not liver-type FABP (L-FABP/FABP1), is also expressed in injured glomerular endothelial cells and infiltrating macrophages in the glomerulus and that urinary FABP4 (U-FABP4) is associated with proteinuria and kidney function impairment in nephrotic patients. However, the link between glomerular FABP4 and U-FABP4 has not been fully addressed in IgA nephropathy (IgAN).

Methods

We investigated the involvement of FABP4 in human and mouse IgAN.

Results

In patients with IgAN (n = 23), the ratio of FABP4-positive area to total area within glomeruli (G-FABP4-Area) and U-FABP4 were positively correlated with proteinuria and were negatively correlated with eGFR. In 4–28-week-old male grouped ddY mice, a spontaneous IgAN-prone mouse model, FABP4 was detected in glomerular endothelial cells and macrophages, and G-FABP4-Area was positively correlated with urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (r = 0.957, P < 0.001). Endoplasmic reticulum stress markers were detected in glomeruli of human and mouse IgAN. In human renal glomerular endothelial cells, FABP4 was induced by treatment with vascular endothelial growth factor and was secreted from the cells. Treatment of human renal glomerular endothelial cells or mouse podocytes with palmitate-bound recombinant FABP4 significantly increased gene expression of inflammatory cytokines and endoplasmic reticulum stress markers, and the effects of FABP4 in podocytes were attenuated in the presence of an anti-FABP4 antibody.

Conclusion

FABP4 in the glomerulus contributes to proteinuria in IgAN, and U-FABP4 level is a useful surrogate biomarker for glomerular damage in IgAN.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

M.T and M.F were supported by JSPS KAKENHI (19K08708, 20K08913, 22K08313).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, S-1, W-16, Chuo-Ku, Sapporo, 060-8543, Japan

    Marenao Tanaka, Megumi Matsumoto, Akiko Sakai & Masato Furuhashi

  2. Department of Nephrology, Teine Keijinkai Hospital, Sapporo, Japan

    Norihito Moniwa, Takuto Maeda & Hideki Takizawa

  3. Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Chieko Nogi, Toshiki Kano & Yusuke Suzuki

  4. Hokkaido Renal Pathology Center, Sapporo, Japan

    Yayoi Ogawa

  5. Department of Nephrology, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan

    Katsuhiko Asanuma

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  1. Marenao Tanaka
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Contributions

MT, and MF designed the study, performed data analyses and wrote the paper. NM, CN, TK, TM, and HT performed data collection. MM and AK performed experiments. YO, KA, and YS supervised the analyses. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Masato Furuhashi.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The human study strictly conformed to the principles in the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethical Committee of Sapporo Medical University (number: 20-2-58) and the Ethical Committee of Teine Keijinkai Hospital (number: 2017-031). All experimental protocols were approved by the Ethics Review Committee for Animal Experimentation of Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine and the Animal Care and Experiment Committee of Sapporo Medical University.

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Tanaka, M., Moniwa, N., Nogi, C. et al. Glomerular expression and urinary excretion of fatty acid-binding protein 4 in IgA nephropathy. J Nephrol 36, 385–395 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40620-022-01551-2

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