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Isolation of Glomeruli and In Vivo Labeling of Glomerular Cell Surface Proteins
Published on: January 18, 2019
Circulating antibodies to nephrin in patients with type 1 diabetes
Petri Aaltonen1, Johanna Rinta-Valkama, Anu Pätäri
1Biomedicum, MolecularMedicine, PB 63, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.
Background:
Patients with type 1 diabetes typically develop autoantibodies to antigens of the pancreatic islet cells including insulin, glutamic acid decarboxylase and the protein tyrosine phosphatase-related islet antigen 2 protein. Nephrin is a protein shared by the kidney glomeruli, pancreatic beta-cells and islet microendothelia. Since circulating antibodies to nephrin have been shown to cause proteinuria, we wanted to test whether such autoantibodies can be detected in diabetic patients.
Methods:
We developed a radioimmunoprecipitation assay and analysed samples in a follow-up series of 66 patients with type 1 diabetes.
Results:
A total of 24% of the patients tested positive for nephrin autoantibodies at diagnosis, whereas 23, 14 and 18% had these antibodies at 2, 5 and 10 years, respectively. During the follow-up at 16-19 years after diagnosis, 14 patients had signs of renal injury and 29% of them tested positive for nephrin autoantibodies in at least one sample.
Conclusions:
We conclude that a subset of patients with type 1 diabetes present with circulating autoantibodies to nephrin. However, the present data do not allow conclusions of a causative role for these antibodies in the pathogenesis of proteinuria in diabetes.
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