Mast cells: the forgotten cells of renal fibrosis

Mast cells, when activated, secrete a large number of fibrogenic factors and have been implicated in the development of fibrotic conditions of the liver, lung, and skin. There is evidence that renal fibrosis is closely linked with a chronic inflammatory cell infiltrate within the interstitium, but a potential role for mast cells in this process has yet to be defined. Therefore, the numbers of mast cells in normal and fibrotic kidneys with various pathologies were investigated.

Mast cells were quantified in renal transplants showing acute and chronic rejection and cyclosporin toxicity, kidneys removed for chronic pyelonephritis, and renal biopsies from patients with IgA nephropathy, membranous nephropathy, and diabetic nephropathy. Mast cells were stained using two methods: acid toluidine blue detected less than 30% of the mast cells revealed by immunohistochemistry for mast cell tryptase.

Mast cells were scarce or absent in normal kidney (median, 1.6 mast cells/mm2) but numerous throughout the cortex and medulla in all specimens that showed fibrosis. They were almost entirely confined to the renal interstitium. Mast cells were present in large numbers in biopsies from patients with membranous nephropathy (median, 21.7 mast cells/mm2) and diabetic nephropathy (median, 29.2 mast cells/mm2), which were selected on the basis of showing chronic injury. In 24 unselected IgA nephropathy biopsies there was a close correlation between numbers of mast cells and the extent of interstitial fibrosis (r = 0.771; p < 0.0001). In renal transplant biopsies, mast cells were associated with allograft fibrosis in chronic rejection (median, 27.1 mast cells/mm2) and chronic cyclosporin toxicity (median, 10.6 mast cells/mm2) but not acute rejection (median, 2.7 mast cells/mm2) or acute cyclosporin toxicity (median, 2.0 mast cells/mm2). There was no detectable increase in mast cell numbers during acute rejection in those transplants that subsequently progressed to chronic rejection. In some biopsies the mast cells were largely intact, but in most cases some or all were degranulated.

An increased number of mast cells is a consistent feature of renal fibrosis, whatever the underlying pathology, and the number of mast cells correlates with the extent of interstitial fibrosis. This suggests that mast cells might play a pathogenetic role in the fibrotic process.