Effect of disease on glomerular proteinases

Up to now, little is known about the self-perpetuating mechanism leading to terminal renal failure in chronic renal disease. The common pathological feature of progressive renal insufficiency is focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis. The experimental counterpart of this process is represented for instance by the models of streptozotocin diabetes, Adriamycin nephropathy and Goldblatt hypertension. In fact, the main initiating hallmark of glomerulosclerosis is an accumulation of glomerular proteins, whose balance is apparently influenced by the activity of glomerular proteinases. In isolated glomeruli of kidneys from the experimental animals, the total proteinase activity was assayed with the unspecific but sensitive azocasein assay. In fact, the activity was significantly reduced in all experimental models at acid and neutral pH when relating enzyme activity to the glomerular protein and DNA content. We believe, that our data of reduced glomerular proteinase activity in the animal models of glomerulosclerosis represent perhaps a new additional common pathogenetic mechanism. The glomerular protein accumulation could be a result of a synergistical interaction between hemodynamic factors and biochemical ones; the latter, we suggest to be a decrease of glomerular proteinase activity.