Understanding kidney disease: toward the integration of regulatory networks across species

Animal models have long been useful in investigating both normal and abnormal human physiology. Systems biology provides a relatively new set of approaches to identify similarities and differences between animal models and human beings that may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of human kidney pathophysiology. In this review, we briefly describe how genome-wide analyses of mouse models have helped elucidate features of human kidney diseases, discuss strategies to achieve effective network integration, and summarize currently available web-based tools that may facilitate integration of data across species. The rapid progress in systems biology and orthology, as well as the advent of web-based tools to facilitate these processes, now make it possible to take advantage of knowledge from distant animal species in targeted identification of regulatory networks that may have clinical relevance for human kidney diseases.